Chōshinsei no Naruto
by starja
Summary: An academy revamp and a change of attitude can go a long way to changing the future.
1. Prologue - Chapter 1 - The Council

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.**

**Prologue - **Chapter 1** \- Council Meeting**

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, the Professor, the God of Shinobi, had once again been reduced to this. He sighed internally. _Politics._ His gaze drifted over to the current speaker in the council, a rather rotund merchant representative named Harushi Karimoto. Realising that he had been ignoring the man's words in favour of introspection – _again _– he focussed in on the man's undoubtedly long-winded speech…

"…and with the influx of commerce that this new venture will bring, I feel confident that…"

…and promptly tuned out again. By Kami, this was dull. It was almost bad enough to make him wish for another war. At least then the whole village council would only be called in cases of extreme emergency, otherwise the civilian council and the shinobi council would deal with their own issues, in the interest of efficiency. Come to think of it, why would it ever be kept together? His eyes slowly panned around the room. The civilian councillors, they looked bored. It wasn't impossible to be interested in what Harushi was discussing, but it was as close as anything could come to being so. The shinobi councillors were the usual for these kinds of meetings.

Shikaku Nara, head of the Nara clan and Jōnin commander of Konohagakure, was asleep as usual, his spiky ponytail rising into the air above him as he lightly snored with his forehead resting on his arms. His long-time allies and fellow clan heads Inoichi, of the Yamanaka clan, and Chōza, of the Akimichi clan, were sat either side of him, the latter slumped in his chair with a look of defeat etched across his face, while the former leant his chair back on two legs, feet propped up on the desk in front of him, clearly gazing into his own little world. To their right sat the Inuzuka clan head, Tsume; a legendarily impatient and impulsive woman, she was subtly demonstrating an impressive amount of self-control if the rage indicated by her grinding teeth, clenched fist and rapidly tapping leg was any indication. Knowing Tsume as well as he did, the Third was positive she would rather be doing battle with the civilian council than listening to them, if only because she'd be able to stretch her legs. Sat alongside her was Shibi Aburame, head of the Aburame clan, and a complete mystery. Sarutobi didn't know how he was feeling, though he also often wondered if the man knew himself. The last and likely most prominent clan head was Hiashi Hyūga, head of the Hyūga clan, the largest clan in Konoha. His impassive eyes gazed at, and potentially through Harushi, giving the distinct impression of listening to, but most certainly not caring about a topic so far beneath him.

Six of the most powerful shinobi in what was arguably the most powerful shinobi village in all of the Elemental Nations, were sat around a crescent-shaped table facing the civilian council. Six A-ranked shinobi, famous far and wide for their feats and their prestige, were sat in a large room debating the merits of various economic policies and actions. Debating being used in the most generous of senses, potentially observing the debate. Or possibly being in the vicinity of it. Knowing of it at the least.

There was a seventh seat at the shinobi table. At the opposite end to the Hyūga seat, there sat an empty chair, the tall back emblazoned with the crest of the Uchiha clan. Since the founding of the village the Uchiha had occupied a council seat and now, for the first time, the seat went unfilled. The recent Uchiha massacre had been preying on his mind now for a myriad of reasons, not least of them an overwhelming sense of guilt. He did not regret doing what needed to be done. Not for a second. He did however, regret the position it placed the late clan head Fugaku's two children in. One declared an S-rank missing-nin at the age of thirteen – _thirteen_ – and the other left orphaned, mentally tortured and, for want of a more accurate term, abandoned. Abandoned by his family for leaving him alone, and abandoned by his elder brother, whom he witnessed destroy his entire family.

Sarutobi continued to reminisce, not noticing that the civilian council had begun to filter out and the shinobi council had begun to wake up.

"Lord Hokage?"

At the founding of the village, an unprecedented problem arose. For the first time in history, the two dōjutsu clans were cooperating, though not without extreme suspicion. For the longest time, both clans had professed that their Kekkei Genkai was the superior of the two, in some cases, had gone so far as to circulate rumours concerning the origins of either dōjutsu in order to decrease demand for their competitor's services. This was all during the time of the clan wars of course, such defamation would not be accepted now amongst the clans of Konoha, and infighting amongst the leaves would only weaken the branches of the great tree.

"Lord Hokage!"

It had gotten so bad that upon the founding of the village, both the Hyūga and Uchiha had agreed to be seated directly opposite each other, entrusting to their fabled eyes the task of detecting the inevitable machinations and deceit of their rivals.

A tap on the shoulder distracted the Professor from his thoughts. He gazed up into the lazy expression of Shikaku expectantly.

"A word in your office Hokage-sama? I've been doing some thinking."

When a Nara thought, the world waited. When a Nara spoke those thoughts, the world listened, and usually obeyed. One must be extraordinarily stupid to disregard the advice of a Nara. As far back as the second shinobi world war, a Nara had held the position of the village's chief strategist. Indeed, whilst the first shinobi world war had been won largely on the back of the strength of Konoha's clans and various Kekkei Genkai, it had come at a great cost, namely the loss of both the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju and the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju. It was a terrible blow, as they had been two of the most powerful shinobi to have ever graced the Elemental Nations, and a great personal tragedy to Hiruzen as well, to lose both of his senseis. The second shinobi world war was a great victory for Konoha, and a large part of that victory was attributed to the tactical genius of the Nara clan, who devised battle plans, contingency plans and emergency plans for every conceivable occasion, and for those events that were inconceivable, they were very good at thinking on the fly.

The fact that Shikaku had been active enough to actually gain his attention and get involved indicated he had been thinking hard about something, and it was significant enough to both keep his attention, and warrant the attention of the village leader. Sarutobi was _not_ extraordinarily stupid.


	2. Prologue - Chapter 2 - Discussions

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.**

****Prologue - **Chapter 2 - Discussions**

"I'm so very sorry Shikaku" the Sandaime said solemnly, "How are Inoichi and Chōza holding up?"

"Not very well Hokage-sama, losing any clan member is hard enough, but to lose a team with one of each of ours in it…" Shikaku trailed off, shaking his head slowly. He sighed. "The team was not ready Hokage-sama."

The Sandaime looked up sharply. "Shikaku, the team had completed the prerequisite number of missions, they had a Jōnin accompanying them, plus they had all exceeded at the academy."

Shikaku leaned forward in his seat, his elbow resting on his knee and his chin propped up in a cupped palm. "Sandaime-sama, the D-ranked mission prerequisite is meaningless, and the Jōnin was too busy to them out, but what I wanted to talk to you about was the academy. I think-"

"Shikaku, they were outnumbered _and_ facing a B-ranked missing-nin, I don't-"

"With all due respect Hokage-sama, they were outnumbered by bandits. I don't fault the Jōnin, he had no choice but to engage the missing-nin; a B-ranked missing-nin would make short work of most genin teams. Bandits however, they should not pose a threat to any ninja, genin or kage. On my first c-rank mission after the academy, my genin team defeated a camp of thirty bandits that had attacked the town we had been assigned to patrol. Our Jōnin sensei was there to step in if things got out of hand, but we were fine. Inoichi distracted, I bound, Chōza crushed. So why were three promising new genin, from the same background as the three of us, so easily dispatched by seven bandits. No, my mistake, ten bandits, there were seven left by the time the sensei returned. And Shikaru, Chopu and Inota had been killed. That is unacceptable Hokage-sama, they clearly were not ready!"

"Tell me what you would have done differently Shikaku? The situation was outside their control, it couldn't be helped" Sarutobi realised too late that that question was a foolish one to address to a Nara.

"The academy, Hokage-sama" Shikaku declared.

Sarutobi grazed at his Jōnin commander wearily, "what about the academy?"

"It has slumped Hokage-sama" Shikaku answered curtly, "standards have dropped severely in peacetime, as to be expected, but they have fallen too far."

He was interrupted by a knock at the door. The Sandaime's secretary poked her head around the door.

"Excuse me Hokage-sama, I was just delivering some files an aide has just delivered for Shikaku-san" the secretary said politely, placing the files upon Hiruzen's desk and departing the office once more.

The professor glanced at the files with dread. These days just the sight of the official documents terrified him, although that may have been the large red font printed on the front. MIA.

"These, Hokage-sama, are the files of all the genin that have been killed within two years of graduating the academy over the past ten years" Shikaku stated sadly.

He removed the majority of them and set them aside.

"These are over the past five years."

He palmed roughly a dozen files from the top of the pile.

"These are from the past three years. Over the past three years Hokage-sama, we have had two genin survive past two years. Our younger generation is being slaughtered Hokage-sama and with your permission, I'd like to do something about it."

"Do you think I don't know, Shikaku?" Sarutobi snapped at the clan head. "I am the one who informs every family of every loss. More than anyone else, barring the families, _I know._"

"Then why has nothing been done Hokage-sama?" Shikaku asked softly.

"Because I'm old Shikaku" Sarutobi replied softly. "It has always been done that way since the founding of the village, and for the first time in so long, the nations have a tangible grip on peace with one another, and I don't know where to go from there. We're warriors Shikaku, born and raised. I remember more battles that I'd care to and more kills than I dare to. And that's not accounting for the ones I don't doubt I've forgotten. One way or another, I've lost my wife, my predecessors, my successor, both my sons, my grandson, most of my friends and all three of my students. I'm old Shikaku, my will of fire is dimming; the mind I wish was willing, but it's struggling to remember why. And my body? My greatest battle, my deadliest foe, and the one I know I could never defeat is creeping up on me and sat here, in this room, day after day? I feel like I'm just waiting for him.

"I don't want a nation to end up like me: these children have such hope, such spirit… I let standards of combat training slide in the hopes that it would encourage peace in their heart, by delaying putting a blade in their hands, or at their throats. They are our future: I was just hoping our ways could be the past." Sarutobi sat back in his chair, looking weary and, for want of a better word, beaten. He swiveled in his chair to gaze out over the village.

"Hokage-sama…they are not going to see the future without our help. War is not something Konoha wants, but we can't just lie down. So long as there are people to be taken advantage of, people are going to take advantage of them. And we can't stop them forever; soon our children will have to. They _must _be ready."

After waiting for a moment for a reply and receiving none, Shikaku quietly dismissed himself from the office, leaving the wizened old leader to think.

* * *

"Gai, there's nothing I can do for him!" the Sandaime exclaimed. "The boy has a physical inability to perform ninjutsu or genjutsu, and by all accounts, shows absolutely no aptitude for taijutsu. I simply cannot condone allowing him to continue, he is not ready for shinobi life." The irony of him almost exactly mirroring Shikaku's statement was far from lost on the Hokage.

Gai began to protest, in the only way he knew. Loudly. "Hokage-sama, he has as much talent as I! When I was-"

"No Gai, you were raised by your father, an excellent man and the hardest worker I've ever met bar yourself. Lee doesn't have the advantage of someone teaching him-", again, Sarutobi was surprised realising he had as good as said the academy didn't teach well at all, "-and he had not even a tenth of your drive."

"What if he did?" Gai asked quietly.

"What if he did what?" the Sandaime asked, slightly puzzled by Gai's sudden change of mood.

"What if he _did _have those things? I know you have been struggling to fill the third spot on my team, from what I've seen and read there are only eight promising students in this year's crop."

"Two" the Hokage said quietly.

"Excuse me, Hokage-sama?"

"There are two promising students this year. Neji Hyūga is a prodigy in his own right: I haven't seen such a gifted use of the Byakugan since his father and uncle. And Tenten: I have _never _seen a weapons user so adaptable _and_ talented in Fūinjutsu as well! No, the official report declares eight to be ready to be genin, I see only two" the Sandaime declared with conviction.

'I should have seen this one coming' he thought bitterly. 'Argue with a Nara…'

"Then, why not?" Gai blurted out. "If you're already putting through six students who are unfit for it, why is one more any issue? And it's traditional for the Rookie of the Year and the Kunoichi of the Year to be paired with the dead-last, Hokage-sama."

"Because he hasn't shown that he wanted it Gai" Sarutobi stated simply. "He knows he has no talent, he professes that he wants to be a ninja, but the one branch of shinobi arts that he could become good at, he doesn't try to. No, with no conviction and no talent, he would not survive. I'm sorry Gai."

Gai opened his mouth as if to say something and then closed it again, his jaw tightening noticeably in restraint.

"If you have something to say Gai, say it. Kami knows I've been in this position long enough to be able to listen to what my trusted shinobi and advisors tell me", 'Damn it Shikaku'.

"What about Jiraiya-sama?" the green-clad Jōnin queried.

'Oh'. "What about him, Gai?" Sarutobi asked, knowing the answer, but wondering where Gai was going with this. Gai was rarely serious, but the man was one of the most capable Jōnin to ever come out of Konoha, and when the man was serious, you took him seriously.

"He was the dead-last. A fool. Talentless by all accounts" Gai shrugged. "You taught him, got him to change his lazy attitude and worked him hard, and now he is one of the only S-rank shinobi Konoha has! My father could perform _no _ninjutsu or genjutsu, and he fought the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist to a standoff, _alone_."

"It did cost him his life" Sarutobi pointed out quietly.

"No, Hokage-sama, it did not. The way you look at it, that fight cost him his life. The way I look at it, he gave his life to that fight, and he is the sole reason I am standing here now, in more ways than one.

Gai paused for a moment to let it sink in.

"Konoha is full of these stories Hokage-sama. Konoha has been built on the minds of its prodigies, but on the backs of its Jiraiyas, its Maito Dais and yes, on the back of its Lees. The boy may be talentless, but if I get through to him the way my father got through to me, and the way you got through to Jiraiya, he will be the greatest taijutsu specialist Konoha has ever soon. I swear it" Gai vowed, his face solemn and his voice strong.

Gai did not make vows lightly, Sarutobi knew. It added a great deal of credibility to what would have otherwise been, from anyone else, an utterly preposterous claim.

* * *

The god of shinobi sat with his back to his desk, staring into space. He had made a split-second decision. That was the sort of thing a teenager would do, not one of the oldest living shinobi. He smiled. The follies of youth. He had missed them.

The sun began to slowly descent behind the village, bathing the village in a beautiful hue of orange and pink. He has sent for Shikaku earlier and requested he come to his office at his earliest convenience. He knew Shikaku well, and he knew that not even a summons from his leader would be enough to make him leave the funeral.

It was one of the things that just made him love this village. Konoha was the only village that placed such a premium on teamwork and camaraderie.

A knock at his door distracted him from his thoughts. His secretary had long since gone home.

"Enter" he called.

Shikaku walked in, clad in his usual Jōnin attire, but in black. Sarutobi smiled inwardly. As lazy as Shikaku was, he was a ninja through and through, and as dedicated to his village as they come.

"You called for me Hokage-sama?" Shikaku drawled. It was hard to tell if it was a question or not, as usual from Shikaku. He had a unique way of asking a question whilst leaving you in absolutely no doubt that he knew the answer a lot more thoroughly than you did, even if the answer was only in your thoughts.

Sarutobi turned away from the window, breaking his gaze reluctantly from his favourite view. He has been thinking long and hard, after being forced into it by his treacherous subconscious. 'No matter the personal feelings, one really could be his own worst enemy, all without ever leaving the confines of his mind' he mused.

"I've been thinking Shikaku" he began slowly. "At first, I was thinking about those that had come before us, and of those who had recently passed away. Then, I had a rather interesting conversation with our resident taijutsu master. Gai is a rather odd man, but he has some fantastic opinions and views on life, don't you think?"

"I do, Hokage-sama" Shikaku replied. "What were you speaking to him about?"

"The future." The god of shinobi looked Shikaku dead in the eye, sending a shiver down Shikaku's spine. "Tell me your plan for the academy."


	3. Prologue - Chapter 3 - Teachers

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.**

****Prologue – **Chapter 3 - Teachers**

The Hokage gazed at the assembled ninja in front of him. He met each of their eyes, or indeed, eye, and saw nothing in them but confidence and loyalty. He smiled inwardly, he'd definitely chosen well.

"I have called you all here this afternoon to discuss an idea that Shikaku has proposed to me. You are all either one of the village's leading experts in your fields, or are significantly qualified and experienced otherwise, so I have assembled you here to form a…committee of some sorts. Shikaku?" Sarutobi leant back in his chair, and looked over to the Nara.

Shikaku stepped forward slightly, drawing the attention of the others in the room. "I want to implement a new curriculum in the academy, and I want your opinions. Each of you has been carefully picked by either Sandaime-sama or myself, and I'm sure I don't need to explain why. I am going to call on each of you in turn: I want you to speak for a few minutes on your opinion of the academy, what's good, what's bad, what's lacking…We'll go from there. Kakashi, you hold seniority, so you first."

A tall, laid-back and frankly quite lanky Jōnin in standard attire stepped forward, calmly placing a small orange book into the pouch on his hip. "Well Hokage-sama, my biggest qualm with the academy is the ninjutsu. We only teach the basic level ninjutsu, but there's so many more that could be very useful. By the time our genin graduation, they don't have a single combat jutsu given to them by the academy. This means there's a lot of wasted time, but, something that no-one else seems to have thought about, it's heavily biased towards our clan members, as they have someone to fill in the gaps at home. It is a real struggle for our civilian-born ninja to even survive with the way things are." Kakashi stepped back into the assembled group of Jōnin and resumed reading, to the resigned sigh of the Hokage.

The Sandaime looked meaningfully at Shikaku. "How are the fatality rates for civilian-born Shikaku?"

"Not great, significantly higher than those from the main clans. That was another problem I wanted to address with this new plan."

Sarutobi sighed. How did it get this bad? "Ok, Kurenai?" Sarutobi beckoned the only female in the room forwards.

Kurenai was a beautiful woman; there really was no other way to describe her. Long, glossy hair; full, red lips; a dress that frankly left very little to the imagination, the list went on. She was one of Hiruzen's most favoured Jōnin, though for none of those reasons. The Third Hokage favoured Kurenai Yūhi, not as a man, but as the leader of a village of shinobi. Kurenai was determined, loyal and incredibly hard-working, all traits that he respected and desired in the shinobi and kunoichi under his command, but his favourite characteristic of hers was her single-minded pursuit of her goal. She was adamant that genjutsu could be as potent a ninja art as ninjutsu or taijutsu, and should be respected and feared as such. As Konoha's Genjutsu Mistress, she had attained those qualities for her own reputation, but it was never her fame or acclaim that she sought, merely recognition for the field her small family specialised in.

"Well Hokage-sama, my worry is the genjutsu taught in the academy. There is none! There are no genjutsu in the curriculum, none in the graduation exams; the students aren't even taught how to recognise and dispel them. It is left up to the sensei once they graduate, but I really think that is leaving it too late."

The Hokage nodded kindly at Kurenai, signalling her to step back, and addressed a very familiar face, albeit one seen through a haze of smoke.

"And what of your opinion?" He asked.

A bearded, powerfully-built man in the standard Jōnin attire so commonly seen around Konoha cleared his throat.

"My issue is close-combat. Weapons, taijutsu, grapples… we just don't teach it enough. There's too much emphasis on the practical and the katas, and not nearly enough use of the techniques and tools available. The genin are coming out of the academy knowing the perfect stance for the standard kata, and then they get floored by one punch because they can't see it coming, and can't react to it even if they can. Weapons… well we need to teach them. Kunai and Shuriken are great, but they aren't perfect. They're the jack-of-all-trades of weaponry, but it's better to have at least some masters."

Asuma began to step back, but hesitated. "Kurenai is the best genjutsu user in the village, and Kakashi is the best ninjutsu barring you Hokage-sama. However, I'm not sure where I fall in this idea? I'm not the best in the village with a sword, and I'm certainly not the best taijutsu user in the village. Why exactly is it I've been selected for… whatever this is?" He asked.

"You're a capable strategist, a strong taijutsu user, weapons user, and on top of that, you can use the only element that Kakashi lacks. Other than you, the only Fūton user in the village is Danzō, and I would really rather he is kept separate from this." Sarutobi answered. "You're correct in that you are not one of the village's best specialists, but you are one of the village's strongest all-round ninja, which is equally as important."

Kakashi looked around the room curiously. Genjutsu, ninjutsu, weaponry… the only art missing is taijutsu, and if the trend of the first two at least continued, there was only one person missing from this meeting. Was Gai involved in this?

"I have asked you all here not only for the purpose of giving me counsel on this matter. The three of you are next in line to take a set of graduating students and test them to see if they could become genin. If they pass, you will be their senseis. I wish to alter that somewhat." Sarutobi stated.

Kurenai and Asuma looked somewhat dismayed, having both applied for the role of senseis, feeling it was about time they gave back to the village's future. Kakashi felt more a sense of relief, though you'd never know if it showed on his face or not.

"You will still be teachers," This announcement was met with twin smiles and a sigh, "But not in the way you expect. I wish you to go back to the academy, as senseis to a selected sample of the final year. Supplement it with what you feel is necessary. Build on their weaknesses, capitalise on their strengths. I want to see if you can take a year and give me ninja. The sample will be mostly made up of clan heirs as they require a certain heavier protection, and because they will be the most suited to the more rigorous training. Having spent two years in the academy doing very little, it would be too large a shock for the majority of the class, it really wouldn't be beneficial. There will be one or two students that are not clan heads if they have shown promise and/or dedication outside of class hours, but that's it."

At this point Kakashi felt a pit of dread pool in his stomach. He knew it. Wherever he goes, Gai follows. But how could that be the case? Gai already has a genin team; in fact, he knew that he was going to be testing them the very next day. Look underneath the underneath. What was he missing?

"Hokage-sama, how will you get Gai on board with this?" Kakashi queried. "I know he is excited about teaching his genin, and especially going on missions with them. I'm not sure how you're going to be able to sway him." Kakashi knew that Gai would be the best for taijutsu, hell; the man was doubtlessly in contention for the title of the world's greatest taijutsu user. That Gai would be able to bring the students up to scratch, and indeed far beyond, was unquestionable – though their survival would be – but the man was so far beyond exuberant most people considered him a joke. Having sparred with him countless times, Kakashi would not fall prey to that kind of thinking. Gai was the kind of ninja that you didn't dare look away from in a fight – not for cunning, or fancy techniques, but simply for the fact that a single punch from him could put a man through a concrete wall a metre thick, and it would be faster than you could blink.

"That has already been taken care of Kakashi; he will be there when you start teaching in a fortnight at the start of the new academy year." Sarutobi replied curtly. He didn't bother to question how Kakashi knew that. Kakashi had an uncanny way of knowing almost everything that was going on, even those things that he either should not know, or he really would have no way of finding out. It was just one of those things that made Kakashi a very resourceful ninja, but it did get grating at times. Hiruzen had a literal crystal ball, and he still sometimes felt like he was playing catch-up with a ninja under his own command!

"For now, here are the files on your students." Sarutobi gestured to a pile of yellow folders on his desk. "Study them; try to get some background information on each student. I want this group to be more than just comrades. With the number of clan heirs in this class, it has the potential to be the greatest graduating class Konoha has ever seen, and I want you, my most trusted shinobi, to make them the best. The aim is not to make them better than the competing villages, nor is it to make them better than their comrades. The aim is simply to make them better than they would have been, to make them better than they could have been."

The Hokage's words, but more importantly, the meaning behind the words, straightened even Kakashi's slumped back. _We need this – Don't fail me._

* * *

"Gai, I've decided to agree with your request-"

The Hokage was interrupted by the yelling and leaping Jōnin.

"Gai. Gai! GAI!" Sarutobi yelled, desperately trying to calm him down. This was ridiculous. A man could lose _years _of his life waiting for Gai to calm down.

The Hokage waited patiently for a few more minutes, before opening a concealed drawer on his desk and fingering a kunai, debating whether or not it would be worth _killing _Gai, just to shut him up – if that would stop him that is.

"There's no such thing as the flames of youth" Sarutobi whispered, smirking slightly behind his omni-present pipe when Gai froze mid-leap.

"Ah good, you're back. As I was saying I will accept your request – "Gai's leap was interrupted by a kunai whistling past his nose – "on one condition. I need you to take your new team and re-enter them for the final academy year."

Gai's ever-so-expressive face screamed confusion to the world.

"I don't understand Hokage-sama, they've graduated? If this is because of Lee's level, I can work with him beginning immediately; I was only waiting for your go-ahead. I've written up a training program for him to massively boost his strength and speed and I can…" Gai's hurried speech tailed off in the wake of the Hokage's raised palm.

"Brilliant Gai, you're already very much into the teaching aspect of this, aren't you? You're misunderstanding me. I want you to take that enthusiasm and apply it to teaching not just your team, but a selection of nine other promising students as well."

Gai's face remained unchanged. Sarutobi sighed. This may take a while.

* * *

Kakashi, Gai, Asuma and Kurenai stood in front of the students in the room. They exchanged sidelong glances. This bit was _not _going to be fun.

With a sigh, Kakashi stepped forward.

"Welcome to your final year of ninja academy."


	4. Act 1 - Chapter 1 - Foundations

**A/N: I don't normally start with one of these, but I felt I should in this case. It's been quite a while since I updated this story, and I do apologise for that, but rest assured, this story is not dead in the water, I've just been incredibly busy with work and whatnot. Without a great deal of further ado, here's the latest chapter of **Chōshinsei no Naruto!****

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.**

**Act 1 – Chapter 1 - Foundations**

Kakashi addressed the assembled trainees, giving off an aura screaming with the impression that there was literally nothing he cared less about than this right now.

"Here we will train you to eat, breath, act and, most importantly, think as shinobi do. We will hone your bodies to become your deadliest weapon" – he paused to gesture with his thumb at Gai, who was lightly vibrating with excitement – "actually, _he_ will, but we'll get into specifics later. Introductions first."

Kakashi gazed around the room, meeting each eye in turn. As his gaze paused over each person, the would-be genin felt a chill run through them.

"However, know this. I will not tolerate disrespect to myself or your classmates. You will all become comrades-in-arms, and at one point or another, each one of you will likely owe one another your lives. You will watch each other's backs, and mine too, and I will not trust anyone to watch my back if I can't respect them. Konoha was built on the foundations of teamwork and support, and we should try not to damage such a long-standing tradition, hm?" Kakashi's one-eyed crinkled, conveying a smile, _somehow_, and caused the students to sweat-drop. Four teachers, and within five minutes, one of them was already clearly insane. What a start.

"Meet me outside." Kakashi declared abruptly, disappearing in a plume of smoke. Reacting with a sigh, a laugh and a "YOSH!" of excitement, the three Jōnin proceeded to follow him out of the room on foot. With varying degrees of interest, the students slowly followed their apparent teachers out of the room.

"What do you think is going on, Shikamaru?" a rather…well-fed boy with swirl markings on his cheeks asked his friend.

"By the looks of things, we've got new teachers. It's unusual for a class to have more than one sensei though. And I'm pretty sure those three," Shikamaru nodded his spiky head towards the three students walking slightly ahead of them, "have already graduated."

"Two of us have graduated", a long-haired boy in a light shirt announced, "One of us was fated to fail, and is now having his humiliation repeated."

"Neji! Stop it, we've been told we're on a team, let's act like it. You heard what that Jōnin said, we should get along." A girl with brown hair tied up in buns implored the boy. The girl turned and smiled at Shikamaru and his friend. "Hi, I'm Tenten, this is Neji and our other friend is Lee."

The girl beckoned forward a boy with a bowl haircut and a lean, rather gangly frame.

"Good morning. I am Lee, it is a pleasure to meet you." Lee introduced himself with a bow and a smile.

"Chōji," said the chubby boy, "and this is Shikamaru."

Shikamaru opened his mouth to greet Lee in return, but was interrupted by Kakashi's voice cutting through.

"Alright, now that we're all here, we can begin. In the spirit of camaraderie, I would like to start with introductions." Kakashi looked around the group, finally pointing at a girl with long blonde hair tied up in a high pony-tail. "You first, go."

The girl looked a little shell-shocked at being called on so suddenly. "Me? Alright. I'm Ino Yamanaka."

Kakashi stared blankly at Ino. "…and?" He asked.

"What? I told you my name, we're introduced."

The stare continued. "Ok, so you're just a name? No likes, hobbies, talents, dislikes…?" Kakashi tailed off.

Ino went slightly red, though whether from embarrassment or annoyance at being ridiculed by her new sensei was unclear, probably both.

"My name is Ino Yamanaka. I'm the heir to the Yamanaka clan, I'm quite good at my clan techniques, I enjoy gardening and pressing flowers and I dislike fatty foods." Ino tossed her hair back from her shoulder. "Happy now?" She snapped at Kakashi.

"Ino-pig, don't be so rude to our new sensei, it's not his fault you're stupid," a girl with bright pink hair sneered.

Ino opened her mouth to retort but was cut off by Kakashi.

"Pinky, go!" he barked.

At Kakashi's voice, the pink-haired girl almost seemed to shrink in on herself. "My name is Sakura Haruno, I'm good…" Sakura tailed off, mumbling quietly.

Ino laughed out loud, wiggly her little finger into her ear. "What was that, forehead? You want to speak up?"

Sakura shot a withering glare at Ino. "My name is Sakura Haruno, I like karaoke and reading…" she stopped when Kurenai stepped forward.

"Why don't we change something here? This is lovely and all, but it's not very useful. Let me demonstrate what I want you to say." Clearing her throat, she continued. "My name is Kurenai Yūhi; I am the village's genjutsu mistress. My ninjutsu is at roughly low Jōnin level; my taijutsu is my weak spot. Since I was younger, I've dreamed about proving that genjutsu could be as dangerous and versatile as the other ninja arts, thus raising my clan's status, as they are some of the village's foremost genjutsu users."

Kurenai stepped back and gestured to Sakura to continue. "What I want is for you to explain what traits you have, where your strengths and weaknesses are and what your aspirations as a shinobi are. This is at its core a military academy in a military village, so what we really need to know is how you fare as a potential member of this institution."

Sakura looked sceptically at Kurenai. "Ok. Well my name is Sakura Haruno. My favourite of the ninja arts is genjutsu, though I'm also quite good at ninjutsu. My taijutsu is ok, but I don't like it that much. My strength is academia; I can observe and deduce things quite quickly, and am very good at learning new information. My weakness is my physical stamina. As for aspirations…" Sakura cast a sidelong glance at a boy standing a few metres from her. "They're personal."

"No. They're not. I didn't say personal aspirations. We are not here as counsellors, we are here as your sensei's. We are going to take what you are, find out what you want to be and get you there. If being a wife and a mother is your one true goal, then this path may not be for you. In this line of work, there is a very real chance of physical impairment or even death. Those kinds of hopes… they take a back seat. Try again. What do you want to be?"

Sakura looked contemplatively at the sky. "I…I'm not sure."

Kurenai smiled warmly at Sakura. "Much better answer" she replied. She then turned to the girl standing nearest to her. "Hinata, why don't you go next?"

One by one, the shinobi in training introduced themselves to their new comrades, until they had worked their way right back around to a short boy with bright yellow hair and an orange jumpsuit which, in the eyes of effectively everyone there bar one, was fit only for kindling.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki! I'm good at ninjutsu and taijutsu; I _hate _genjutsu and written work. My strength is my stamina and my determination; I will never give up, because those who quit can never fulfil my goal: to be Hokage!" Naruto exclaimed, bringing a fist up in front of his face to give physical credence to his claims.

The silence was deafening. The thoughts running through the minds of the trainees varied in explosiveness, but were almost all along the lines of questioning just what Naruto's problem was. They were trying to take this seriously; did he always have to be such a joke?

The senseis gazed at Naruto thoughtfully. Kakashi looked at his fellow instructors, and silently volunteered himself to speak their thoughts.

"Naruto" Kakashi said quietly. The sheer contrast between the volume of his new sensei and that of Naruto's declaration was enough to get his attention. "We're trying to establish something here, something new. It is felt the academy needs to be more challenging, and that it was not raising the next generation of ninja in a way that would ensure…well…their survival. Either you don't get that and haven't picked up on the atmosphere, or you're deadly serious. Which is it?"

Naruto's fist slipped back down to his side. "I'm serious Kakashi-sensei. I will be Hokage, and then everyone will respect and acknowledge me! I swear it!"

Naruto may have been known to be many things, but the boy never lied. His classmates knew it, and even the new arrivals could tell that this was not a person that declared things lightly.

"Ok" Asuma replied, taking the reins from Kakashi. "If you're serious about being Hokage, I've seen what being Hokage is about. It will take a lot to prove to anyone here that you've got what it takes kid. But I like your ambition."

Naruto opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by Kakashi.

"Our first lesson is going to be simple: sparring. I want you to go up against one teacher of your choosing and fight them in a no-holds barred match. You will throw everything you have at them, you will fight to kill. After all, against Jōnin of our level, that's the only way you might survive past ten seconds" Kakashi stated simply. There was no sadism in his voice, no viciousness in his gaze, it was just pure fact. Whether or not he was aware that it made his declaration twice as intimidating, only he knew.

"I want a volunteer for th-"

"Let's go!" Naruto yelled, leaping forward to stand just in front of the senseis, an arm outstretched with a single digit pointed unwavering into Kakashi's face. "You're the first person who has _ever _even considered I was serious when I said I was going to become Hokage. So you're the first person I'm going to prove it to!"

Kakashi stared down at Naruto with a look of mild surprise. "You don't waste any time, do you? Ok then." Kakashi quickly formed a series of hand seals and slammed his hands to the floor.

"**Doton: Doryūheki**! _(Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall)_" Kakashi exclaimed. A rumbling followed his words, a square pedestal about ten square feet rising about three feet from the floor beneath him, taking the four senseis and Naruto into the air.

Gai, Kurenai and Asuma hopped off from the makeshift arena down to their students.

Asuma cleared his throat. "Alright, anything goes in this match. Weapons if you've got them, ninjutsu and genjutsu if you know them. You both ready?" Asuma glanced between the two, waiting for the nod from Naruto before leaping backwards.

"Hajime!"

Naruto launched himself forwards with a fist cocked back, hoping to end the fight in one blow. He leapt at Kakashi, aiming straight for his face, but just as his fist was about to make contact, his target was suddenly no longer there, causing him to shoot straight past where he was intending to land and forcing him to windmill his arms in order to stop his own momentum carrying him out of the ring and out of the fight.

Naruto turned and glared at the one-eyed Jōnin. Again, he sprinted at Kakashi, but this time, just as he prepared to leap like before, he threw a smoke bomb at the floor, enveloping the area in a thick cloud gas that was all but impossible to see through. Naruto quickly reached into his pouch and plucked out three shuriken, launching them all at once directly towards where he last remembered his sensei to be. Hearing a yell, he allowed a wide grin to creep its way onto his face.

"Ha Kakashi-sensei, I told you I was good! Don't blame me for getting hurt; you said come at you with everything I had!"

Following his words, a gust of wind blew over the arena, taking with it the cloud of smoke. With one shuriken spinning on Kakashi's finger, one held in Asuma's hand just in front of Kiba's face and one embedded firmly in a tree about twenty yards away, it became rapidly apparent that his epic victory was even less epic than it was a victory.

"Hey Naruto, let's try to not kill our classmates, hm?" Kakashi said tauntingly. He flicked the shuriken back towards Naruto, catching him across the cheek before the shuriken embedded itself solidly in one of the stone walls of the academy.

Naruto stumbled backwards in shock, staring disbelieving at his sensei. 'N-no way.' Naruto thought to himself. 'He saw straight through both of my attacks, even with my smoke bomb, and I didn't even see that shuriken. He could have killed me, and I wouldn't have been able to do a thing.'

Looking left and right to see if there was something, anything to hand he could use, Naruto sighed internally and decided to give an all-out assault one more go.

Yelling as he sprinted towards Kakashi, Naruto once more launched himself, this time leaping from roughly the half-way point of the arena. Before he had gone even an inch, he slammed two smoke bombs into each other in his hands, covering himself and the rest of the arena in a haze once more. The crowd watched on, the Jōnin interested in Naruto's latest plan, and the shinobi-in-training too stunned at seeing just how easily a Jōnin of Kakashi's calibre could ignore anything and everything Naruto could throw at him to even laugh as the class clown was humiliated.

There was silence from inside the arena, until Naruto was thrown clear of the arena to bounce along the ground a few feet before rolling to a stop. As the smoke cleared, it became apparent to all who were watching that Kakashi had barely moved, judging from his outstretched hand and the nose planted firmly in a certain small orange book.

"That was just a push. It wasn't even an actual hit; he just shoved Naruto clear of the arena. He's strong" Ino whispered to Sakura.

"Yeah, I can see. But how did he read that book in the smoke?" Sakura replied, looking bewildered as she stared up at Kakashi.

"Well, that was fun" Kakashi said, his eyes never leaving the page. "Now, someone tell me what Naruto did wrong."

Sakura's hand bolted into the air.

"Really? No-one has any comments about Naruto's performance?"

Sakura's hand was waving violently by this point, causing those nearby to edge away in order to avoid being hit by the flailing limb.

"Kiba, go!" Kakashi barked, pointedly ignoring the over-eager pinkette directly in front of him in favour of a powerfully built boy in a fur-lined coat with a puppy perched atop his head.

"He was too slow! If he'd been quicker, then he could've hit you." Kiba pointed out.

Kakashi hummed thoughtfully. "While that is true, being slow isn't a mistake, it's a fact. I don't want your observations about Naruto physically, I want to know what you think was wrong with what he did, or how he fought. What about you Naruto, how do _you _think you did?"

Naruto looked up sullenly from where he was sat on the ground. "How am I supposed to know that?! If I knew that I was doing something wrong I wouldn't have done it, would I? Besides, it's not my fault I lost, you're way too fast, I couldn't even see you move, let alone hit you!"

"A fair point, but did you know that before you charged in?" Kakashi asked. "Sasuke, what did Naruto do wrong?"

The Jōnin's question cut right across Naruto's attempt at answering. The blonde glared over at Sasuke, his desire to answer back completely overtaken by his distaste at having his failings explained by what was, in his mind, and possibly only in his mind, his greatest rival.

Sasuke sighed in defeat. What a waste of time, the dobe failed miserably as always, surely that was all anybody needed to know.

"He didn't know anything about you before he attempted a knockout blow. He could have easily assessed your speed and reflexes with his shuriken first, without giving away exactly how fast he was. He didn't think about the fight before charging in; we know you're a Jōnin, so if he'd thought about that he would have known that a frontal attack against you was suicide. He telegraphed his movements and attacks. When he used the smoke bombs the first time, he didn't move and couldn't see: he relied on guesswork to try to remember where you were stood, hence he almost killed the mutt, or his puppy-" Sasuke's bored deconstruction of Naruto's fight was interrupted by Kiba's indignant shout "-and if you'd retaliated, which would have been easy as he was stationary, he wouldn't have been able to see it coming."

Kurenai's eyebrows began rising at the beginning of Sasuke's speech; by the end they had almost disappeared into her hairline. Turning to Asuma, she muttered "That Uchiha kid has excellent eyes. He picked up on a few things that you really don't expect genin to think about, and he's not even out of the academy yet. No wonder they've been calling him a genius. Add to that, that level of observation before he's even awoken his Sharingan; once he does…"

Kurenai tailed off, not entirely sure how to finish her sentence. Once he does… what? The idea that his potential might rival Itachi's was both exciting and terrifying. Itachi was one of the most powerful shinobi Konoha had by the time of his defection. Not physically, being only thirteen, but his prowess with genjutsu, even before the enormous boost to genjutsu capabilities that the Sharingan affords its wielders, his speed, his intelligence and his determination added up to a shinobi able to single-handedly eliminate one of the most powerful clans in history. _In one night_. And by all accounts, he was probably not even injured whilst doing so. Konoha's tracker squads were universally held as the most effective of their kind throughout the elemental nations thanks to the canine senses and companions of the Inuzuka, the widespread semi-autonomous hives that each Aburame contained and the all-seeing eye of the Hyūga. Between the three clans, they were able to see and smell a week's worth of trails left by a mouse in a hurricane. The fact that they couldn't find a single trace of his presence there that night was truly a terrifying testament to his skills.

Kurenai shook her head to attempt to clear her thoughts. She had been a huge fan of Itachi when they were both younger. He was younger than her, sure, but he was so confident and powerful. He'd helped her when she'd struggled mastering the most basic of multi-layer genjutsu. Genjutsu was one of the most difficult and obscure of the ninja arts, and as such, it was rarely favoured by burgeoning shinobi attempting to make a name for themselves. This meant that there were very few shinobi that progressed further in the art than to be considered passable, and those that eventually did reach the level that Kurenai herself was rapidly approaching, being able to use the coveted multi-layer genjutsu, were constantly inundated with mission requests requiring their particular skillset. When Kurenai had asked the Hokage for advice on whom to contact and he'd sent her to a shinobi ten years her junior, she had assumed that the Hokage was simply too busy to really deal with her and had palmed her off onto frankly anyone else. She really should have realised that there are very few things that the 'God of Shinobi' does without very good reason.

Kurenai met with Itachi and within ten minutes of speaking to him, she could tell he as different. That was when Kurenai made a foolish mistake, one many people made but nobody repeated. Kurenai underestimated Itachi, and challenged him to a spar. She was not shy in admitting she'd been approaching breaking point with her genjutsu; her ninjutsu had always been strong, and genjutsu was just so obscure… She was so close to giving up her dream. Until that moment.

* * *

_**Flashback!**_

"Are you sure this is necessary?" Itachi asked. "I really have no interest in fighting with you, the Hokage asked me to help you."

Kurenai leapt back into the shade of some trees, drawing several kunai as she did so. "Well I learn best by doing. So prepare yourself!"

Kurenai launched her kunai in a tight grouping, forcing Itachi to leap high into the air, exactly as Kurenai planned.

"You're mine" she spat, hurling three shuriken straight at Itachi, knowing he had nowhere to run. All three shuriken struck true, embedding themselves into Itachi's torso, his face never moving from his impassive stare. After a second, his body was replaced in a puff of smoke by a log, with Itachi nowhere to be seen.

Kurenai scanned the surrounding area, keeping herself alert to a potential ambush.

"I would really rather not do this" came a voice from behind Kurenai's head. Leaping forwards, the red-eyed chunin twisted in mid-air to launch a single kunai towards the source of the voice, coming to land with one hand in her pouch and the other on the ground facing back towards the way she came. The kunai sailed rapidly before sinking deep into the bark inches from Itachi's face.

"You missed" Itachi stated simply. "This fight will never begin if you don't take me seriously."

"I am!" Kurenai yelled, placing her hands into the ram sign in front of her. Itachi cocked an eyebrow in response, until he felt a small pulse of chakra from the kunai next to him.

The kunai exploded with a great deal of force, taking half of the tree it was sunk into with it. Kurenai exhaled in relief. She was worried that he would notice the exploding tag attached to the kunai, but by wrapping it around the end of the blade, she sunk the tag into the tree as well. It meant that the explosion was slightly softened by the tree, but she'd used a larger than usual tag to compensate.

Kurenai waited with baited breath for the smoke to clear. As it faded, she could see the shreds of the tree lying scattered across the ground, along with a large, scorched and cracked log.

"Another substitution!" she muttered, again on guard, but now having maneuverer herself out of having her back to cover and now being completely exposed.

Kurenai waited, watching for what felt like an age. Desperately looking around to find any trace, and sign of movement. Taking a deep breath, she extended her senses outwards, searching the area around her for even the slightest speck of chakra. She was by no means the best of sensors, but it was an invaluable skill she was taught before leaving the academy, and one that had saved her life many times.

The budding genjutsu mistress swung a high roundhouse kick, spinning completely on the spot to deliver a stunning blow to the _arrogant bastard _who was stood right behind her. She smirked inwardly; people always forgot that you could sense if you worked hard at it, no one ever expected to fight a sensor, so people get lazy when they hide. But hiding behind someone? That was so far beyond cocky it was unreal. This would feel good.

It didn't. Her foot went sailing through Itachi's chest, leaving her off balance and surprised. Panicking, she span with her movement and used the added momentum to leap back towards the tree line. In one bound she landed on a thick branch and stared back the way she came. As she watched, the Itachi she had kicked faded away and revealed another Itachi stood a few feet behind him.

"Bunshin!" she growled. This was absurd. She was a promising Konoha kunoichi, pipped for being the first genjutsu centred Jōnin in years, and she was being toyed with by this _child!_

Reaching into her pouch, she counted only one shuriken and one kunai left. Just enough for one last move. Taijutsu was her weakest art, and she certainly wasn't going to go up against an Uchiha in ninjutsu, regardless of his age, so that just left her specialty.

Kurenai drew and launched her shuriken in one smooth motion, sending the shuriken arcing down towards Itachi. The shuriken seemed to inch closer and closer to Itachi before…nothing. It faded straight through him as though he wasn't even there. As she watched, it became apparent he _wasn't _there.

"Trying the same thing won't work on me. It didn't work once. Why would you think it would work twice?" Itachi's voice came from behind her once again.

"Why would you think I'd try the same thing twice?" Kurenai answered, turning around slowly. As she turned, she revealed that her face was entirely smooth, devoid of any features, like an unmoulded clay statue. As she stepped slowly towards Itachi, her skin began to become rougher and darker, slowly turning to wood before Itachi's eyes. As she got within a few metres of Itachi, she came to a stop and crumbled suddenly into falling wood and scattering petals.

"Now you're mine" Kurenai whispered.

Itachi suddenly found himself bound tightly in vines and branches, completely immobilised. He tilted his back to look up into the eyes of Kurenai as her top half emerged from the tree above him, leaving her lower half merged with the trunk.

"Completely trapped. No way to escape my jutsu, you can't even bring your hands together to dispel it." The last kunai she had was resting against Itachi's throat. "Any last words?"

"Just one" Itachi replied. "Take another look".

Kurenai hesitated for a second, her brow wrinkling in confusion. "Take another look? What's that supposed to…"

In the space of a blink, Kurenai found herself facing Itachi in the middle of the field in which they had first met, holding a kunai to her own throat. Gasping, she wrenched her arm away from herself and stumbled backwards away from Itachi. Quickly spinning around to check her surroundings, she was shocked to find that the tree that she had partially destroyed was fully repaired and the ground surrounding them showed no signs of any battle. Clasping her hands together to better focus her chakra, Kurenai summoned as much as she could at once and then pulsed it out of her body, shouting "Kai!".

Around her, the world wavered and then steadied itself once more. Repeating her actions, this time with even more force, she attempted to repel the genjutsu. This time there was a sound of tinkling glass and her eyes widened as the sky began to shatter and fall all around them, revealing as it did another world behind them. This new scene had Kurenai stood upon the branch she was facing Itachi on, this time she herself was bound between two trunks either side, with vines winding up her body from the branch below. A pair of Itachi's reached out from either trunk, hovering forebodingly above her.

"Completely trapped. No way to escape my jutsu, you can't even bring your hands together to dispel it" Kurenai began struggling wildly, attempting to free herself without having to resort to last-ditch methods. "Any last words?"

Itachi's words echoed around her, the two copies speaking eerily in sync with one another. Grimacing, Kurenai bit down hard enough on her bottom lip to draw blood to force herself out of the illusion. In an instant, everything changed.

Looking around, she found herself back in the field facing Itachi once more. She was breathing heavily, sweat running down her face from the exertions of trying to fight off the illusions. In contrast, Itachi was entirely unruffled.

"We... never even began did we?" Kurenai whispered, as much to herself as to Itachi.

"You came here for a genjutsu lesson, or rather a spar. Consider that to be a lesson in itself. You knew very little about me, but assumed my age meant that I was weaker. Considering that the Hokage sent you here to learn genjutsu from me, the fact that you barely considered the possibility that I was a genjutsu specialist demonstrates that there is still much for you to learn." Itachi declared. "Your first instinct should have been to-"

"You layered three genjutsu, one over another." Kurenai interjected. "Not only that, you didn't just create a single genjutsu with many layers, you actually stacked multiple genjutsu one over another so that there was no escape without repeatedly dispelling them, which is something _nobody _would think to do. I've only ever heard rumours of the second Hokage doing this! _How_?"

"That is what the Hokage wished for me to teach you" Itachi replied simply. "Are you willing to learn?"

_**Flashback end**_

* * *

Focussing back onto the class, she heard Kakashi finish up cooling off Sasuke's and Naruto's tempers. Judging from their body language, Naruto had resented being lectured by Sasuke and had tolerated the humiliation for a while, before eventually exploding in anger, to which Sasuke had responded with a distinct lack of interest.

Asuma stepped forward and addressed the assembled trainees. "Alright, judging from that show, you guys need some serious work. First thing we need to work on is your physical conditioning. A few of you don't look particularly health for civilians, let alone shinobi." His gaze passed over Naruto, before settling on Ino and Sakura. "Dieting will leave you with figures like Ino and Sakura: pretty and very thin, but one solid punch and your defences will crumble. You are soldiers now, or you will be, and a soldier who is not fed is one that is a liability. You will not have the stamina, you will not have the strength, you will not be thinking properly because you will be hungry. So quit the diets, ok?"

Sakura looked like she was about the protest before she was completely drowned out by Ino's indignant yell.

"Hey, don't think that I'm weak just because I'm not fat like some people here!"

Shikamaru took a step to the side, leaving a good foot between himself and Chōji, just in case.

"Fat?! Just who are you speaking to?!" Chōji bellowed, his cheeks ballooning in anger.

"Relax Chōji, I was speaking about Sakura" Ino said softly, calming the larger boy down.

"Ha! This coming from the only girl named 'pig' in the class. Tell me Ino, did your parents name you before or after they saw you eating?" Sakura jeered.

Sparks flew between their eyes as the two girls butted heads, all the time shouting insults at each other.

Kiba too had a problem with Asuma's judgement, but for a different reason. "Sensei" he began, "It's not fair that we're being criticised because of Naruto. He's the worst in the class!"

Sakura and Ino at this point had calmed down to listen to Kiba, and found themselves agreeing quite loudly. Panning their gaze around the classmates, it became apparent to the assembled senseis that that was the general consensus of the class, and judging from the reaction from Naruto, or rather, the lack thereof; it was not an unusual complaint.

"Well Kiba, let's put it this way." Kurenai answered. "If Naruto is struggling, and so falls behind, he will just fall further and further behind as we cover more advanced topics. So we have to judge you all by his standards because admittedly, he is the furthest behind, so we have to bring him closer to your level before we can effectively develop your skills."

This explanation seemed to strike a chord with a few members of the class, but only angered Sakura more.

"If he's so far behind, why is he even here? It's obvious you've taken the top students from our class out for this special tuition. The only one who wasn't doing well in class here is Naruto, so he really shouldn't be here anyway. If he can't grasp the basics, he definitely won't be able to cope when it gets more advanced" she reasoned.

"You were all hand-selected by the Hokage to be here, as were your comrades from the class above, and even us senseis. Sandaime-sama saw fit to group us all together, I'm sure he had his reasons" Kakashi stated, ending the discussion there.

Kakashi made it sound as though the senseis were not privy to the inner workings of the Hokage's mind, and didn't know why anyone had been picked specifically. However, that was not entirely true. Or at all in fact. He had either seen the files or knew of each student in the group, and he knew the exact reason that each of them were there. Most of them were their clan links, some were their abilities, Lee was by special request and a little bit of bargaining, and one student in particular, Kakashi needed no background on to know _exactly _why the Hokage has selected him. He'd spent several years tailing the youth in question, protecting him from threats both seen and unseen, and he knew better than most the importance of Naruto's growth.

"Kakashi, shall we move on to actually teaching?" Asuma asked, "We've gotten a little more familiar with them and frankly, I'd prefer to start from scratch with them. We don't know what they've learned well, what they've forgotten or what they've not learned in the first place. I say we take it from the top."

* * *

And so it began. For the first few days, life was mostly routine for the trainees. Frankly, it was just like the academy before, just with a smaller class, and it was _boring_. Of course, with Gai as a sensei, life could only remain boring for so long.

"YOSH" Gai bellowed suddenly, completely drowning out Kakashi's explanations of chakra natures. "Kakashi, this should be explained by a demonstration! Students, follow me to the field!"

Gai bounced out of the room, hollering as he ran through the corridors with his trademarked exuberance. The class stared at Kakashi, as though waiting for a translation for the eccentric Jōnin's behaviour.

"Ok class, I think this lesson is really better explained through a demonstration. Follow me outside to the field." Kakashi drawled, before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

Asuma and Kurenai sighed as the class turned to them. "Each one of those guys is weird: put them together and they're just plain confusing." Asuma whispered to Kurenai, before turning his attention back to the students. "Ok, outside class."

After seeing the interactions between Kakashi and Gai, the class had some mixed reactions about their senseis. Lee and Naruto were amused by the two of them, but they seemed to be in the minority.

"They're both insane!" Sakura whispered in hushed tones to Ino. "First one of them goes crazy and runs off, then the other one just agrees and vanishes. This is _so _weird."

Ino nodded in agreement. "Still, better than Iruka-sensei's ramblings. At least these guys are willing to show us something."

Ino may have given the impression she was solely focussed on books and her looks, but one of her lesser known passions was ninjutsu, the flashier the better. She was not a particularly strong ninjutsu user herself, not including her clan's techniques, but she always loved seeing a good technique performed.

When she was little, she'd gotten lost after walking away from the park following an argument with her mother. She'd walked around and around the village, trying to find her way back to the park to play with her friends, but had gotten herself hopelessly lost. She came across as small group of trees and, remembering that the park she'd came from had a boundary of trees around it, proceeded to run gleefully through them until she came to an empty, open field. Looking around in surprise, she snapped her head to the side when she heard a howling noise and saw a huge fireball bearing down upon her. Just as she began to scream, a huge dragon made of water ploughed into the fireball from the side, completely engulfing it and carrying on until it exploded against the ground a safe distance away from her.

"I'm so sorry, are you ok?" A young man with short black hair and red eyes was suddenly crouched in front of her at her eye level. She gasped and stumbled backwards in surprise, making him chuckle. "Sorry again, I didn't mean to scare you, I was just worried."

"You're scaring her more Shisui" came a voice from the side of them. Looking aside, she saw another young man with the same eyes. "Yamanaka-san, may we help you home?" The man addressed her, surprising her by already knowing of her identity.

Seeing the he had simply worried her more by showing her that they already knew of her, he quickly assured her that most ninja in the village from Chunin onwards would be able to identify her on sight due to her status as a clan heir from one of the Konoha's main clans.

Ino was broken from her reverie when Sakura snapped her fingers in front of her face. "Everyone's heading outside Ino, Kurenai-sensei and Asuma-sensei are waiting for us." Sakura said, gesturing towards the quickly emptying classroom and the two expectant looking senseis in turn.

Once everyone was outside and settled, Kakashi resumed his explanation of chakra natures.

"There are five elements that make up the chakra natures that are found around the world. These elements are fire, water, wind, earth and lightning. These elements have an order, almost a flowing hierarchy if you will, each having strengths and weaknesses in relation to the others."

Kakashi looked around the class and realised he might need to simplify it somewhat. Pausing for a moment, he considered the best way to explain it. Nodding to himself, he scratched a diagram in the dirt between himself and the class.

"The elements work in a circle, with five nodes." Kakashi paused, thinking of the best way to explain it. "Fire beats wind, water beats fire, earth beats water, lightning beats earth and wind beats lightning. The elements come full circle, with some beating others and being beaten in turn." Kakashi paused again, realising that there were more than a few that were not really following.

"It's kind of like Jan Ken Po" Shikamaru said. "Each element has one it beats, just like rock beats scissors but is beaten by paper, even though paper beats rock. The element that defeats wind is fire, but going in order, from fire, wind defeats lightning, which defeats earth, which defeats water, which defeats fire, so wind is higher along that line than fire. Each element has one that it defeats, one that it is beaten by, and the other two have no direct reaction to it. Is that about right?" Shikamaru directed the last question to Kakashi.

Kakashi smiled beneath his mask. "That's an excellent way of explaining it, but I think you need to see it to understand it. Asuma?"

Kakashi and Asuma walked a little way away into the practice field to get some space before turning to one another.

"Asuma and I were selected because of our ninjutsu abilities, among other reasons. I myself know over a thousand jutsus covering all five elements, and Asuma is a thoroughly competent fire user and the best wind style user in the village. Watch closely, we will demonstrate how each element reacts to its stronger and weaker element."

Kakashi summoned a shadow clone and had it stand off to Asuma's side. Flipping through hand seals, Asuma called out "**Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu**!"(_Fire style: Great Fireball Technique_) and spat out a huge fireball which made its way, howling and tearing up the landscape beneath it, directly towards Kakashi.

"I know that technique!" Ino gasped, "That's the one I saw Shisui use when I was little".

At this declaration, Sasuke's head snapped round to stare at Ino, albeit briefly, before turning back to the show of the technique his clan was so famous for.

"**Suiton: Suijinheki**!" (_Water style: Water Formation Wall_) A wall of water erupted from the ground beneath Kakashi and blocked the fireball, causing them both to explode in a cloud of steam. "**Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu**!" (_Water style: Water Dragon Bullet Technique_) A dragon made of water launched itself, open-mouthed and roaring, towards Asuma who stood stock still, seemingly frozen in surprise. Just before the dragon impacted with Asuma, Kakashi's clone called out "**Doton: Doryūheki**!"(_Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall_), causing a large wall to rise out of the ground with Kakashi's signature dog faces lining the top of the wall. The dragon smashed into the wall head on, but against the unyielding stone, the dragon dispersed, leaving only a few cracks behind. "**Doton: Doryūdan**" (_Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet_)_._ The exterior layer of the wall crumbled away to reveal a dragon's head underneath it, which launched large boulders at frightening speeds at Kakashi.

Kakashi performed a series of hand seals at blistering pace before calling out "**Chidori**!" (_One Thousand Birds_) and sprinting forwards, dodging and weaving in between the projectiles, occasionally slicing through one, the whole time closing in on Asuma and his clone. With one last bound, he launched himself forwards and punched his lightning-covered fist through the stone dragon head with ease, causing it to crumble.

As he began to move forward again, he was met head on by a cry of "**Fūton: Daitoppa**!" (_Wind Release: Great Breakthrough_) and a gust of wind that hurtled towards him, flinging him backwards and off of his feet. Flipping over in mid-air, he quickly rushed through some hand seals and called out "**Katon: Karyūdan**!" (_Fire Release: Fire Dragon Bullet_). A stream of flames erupted from his mouth and, combining with the wind that was rushing in front and beneath him, created a howling wall of flame descending from the sky towards Asuma and his clone.

Kakashi quickly cancelled his jutsu, causing the firestorm to rapidly lose power, though it retained plenty to completely obliterate the place where Asuma and his clone were stood.

The class stood horrified as they watched the flames engulf one of their new sensei.

"Good grief Kakashi, a bit much maybe?" Kurenai said in exasperation.

"Well, wind does make fire a lot stronger; they'll definitely remember that now at least. It may even save their life if they come up against a fire user." Asuma commented offhandedly.

As one the class snapped around to see Asuma calmly talking to Kurenai, neither a scratch nor singed hair to be seen.

"Asuma-sensei, how did you do that?!" Naruto yelled, "We saw you get hit by those flames!"

Asuma smiled knowingly. "Clones are very helpful things."

* * *

Kurenai called for the class's attention, ceasing their excited mutterings. "Now that you've seen what the elements can do, I want to know what observations any of you made. Shino, how about you start us off?"

A tall boy in a trench coat that obscured the majority of his body and half of his face gazed impassively at her from behind his dark sunglasses. "Very well. Kakashi-sensei was well versed in several elements, whereas Asuma-sensei required assistance. That was the reason for the clone, because Kakashi-sensei was aware that Asuma-sensei would not have the type advantage in a contest with water-style ninjutsu. Only two of the elements were used defensively, whereas the other three were either reliant on the user to make the jutsu useful, or could only defend by attacking back and overwhelming the opponent's attack. My observation? Not all elements are suited to defence, whilst others are far more useful for attacking than those that have defensive aspects."

"Excellent Shino!" Kurenai replied. "It is true that some elements are better at offence than others, that ability often comes at a price. When considering one element, wind for example, there is _no _defensive jutsu: each wind-style jutsu that could feasibly be used for defence is actually just a re-purposed attack."

Kakashi stepped forward at this point, all eyes turning to him as he began to speak. "Now, the idea was that we test your chakra natures and from there we would start teaching you the basics of some elemental jutsu." He smirked inwardly as the students began murmuring excitedly once again. "But, I'm not convinced you're at that level just yet."

"Hey, that's garbage!" Kiba yelled. "We've spent years here learning so that we could get stronger. Those jutsus were awesome, you can't not teach us them now!"

"Relax Kiba, you'll get there, but we're going to start with the basics." Asuma said, attempting to appease the irritated Inuzuka. "For the moment, we're going to do some physical conditioning, get your bodies up to par so that you can grow properly."

Kurenai walked over to Sakura and Ino and tapped them on their shoulders. Whilst Asuma was talking through the physical routine with Kiba and the rest of the class, Kurenai led the two girls to a tree not to far away and stood underneath its shade.

"You need to stop dieting" she began, holding a hand up to ward off any objections. "If you don't stop, you're going to fail this class. You wont be able to fight properly, so taijutsu will effectively be useless to you, you wont be able to concentrate because you'll be hungry, so genjutsu will not work for you and you will have insufficient chakra levels to adequately perform any ninjutsu. So I say again, stop dieting, or I will personally remove you from the class." Without another word, Kurenai walked back to the group, leaving the two girls in stunned silence.

"Sakura, Ino! Come over here, we are going to begin with some physical training before moving on to light sparring. We need to assess each of you to know what to focus on." Gai called over to the shell-shocked girls.

Sakura and Ino looked back over to the group, seeing many of them already working on running around the field, or performing press-ups and sit-ups near their senseis. For the first time in a long time, the two girls were in agreement about something. This was going to _suck_.

* * *

**A/N: I've seen a few other writers follow up their chapters with a one-sided discussion concerning the recent chapters, and I thought I'd try my hand. Speaking of hands, I'm slightly confused about Kaguya's. Is her son (the Black Zetsu) now a sleeve-monster? I find it bizarre as hell that a being as powerful as Black Zetsu clearly is to be able to orchestrate so much for his mother, and take down several very powerful ninja, including _Madara Uchiha (!) _is content to live in a sleeve. Makes no sense to me. **

**I have to confess, I was pumped as hell when Kakashi got his power-up, though the idea that Obito can warp from the weird limbo dimension he was in to randomly give Kakashi his Mangekyō Sharingan (Limbo? The name of Madara's copies! I just got that!) seemed a little strange. Surely Obito could just come back himself repeatedly? Does that not mean Obito is actually completely immortal? And it's a shame Sakumo wasn't still there by that camp-fire, they could've used the firepower. But I do feel like Sakura's presence at the moment is somewhat bizarre. Kakashi has the Susanoo, teleportation eyes and his inherent badassery, allowing him to set-up their final attack and protect them from Kaguya's counter. Sasuke has the ocular prowess of both the Uchiha clan and the sage of the sixth paths, plus his natural talent, allowing him to perform his half of the seal. Naruto has the power of all nine bijū plus the body of the sage of the sixth paths, allowing him to perform his half of the seal. Sakura punched her in the head as she tried to jump. It's just a little out of place, you know?**

**I keep trying to predict what's going to happen in the conclusion of the story: whether their fates will mimic those of the Sannin before them, though they have each surpassed their respective senseis in various ways, or whether things will finally work out. People are obsessed with the pairings of Naruto, whether they be an enormous NaruHina fan, or have an almost visceral reaction to the very idea. I can see it working either way, but I'm not 100% sure it will work any way. I can't remember one single proper romance plot in the Naruto world, one that actually had a background, we saw the interactions during and potentially it had an end, so why is everyone so sure it will have one now? I'm half of the idea that it is just going to end suddenly, with a big bang and no epilogue, and half of the idea that it's never going to end, though that may just be wishful thinking.**

**At any rate, if you think I'm right, if you think I'm wrong, if you think I'm a genius, or you think I'm a genius, leave a review, I'd love to know. **

**Toodle-pip.**


	5. Act 1 - Chapter 2 - Effort

**A/N: I'm BACK! I've been away so long; I bet you all thought this was forgotten didn't you? Aww you guys, don't worry so much, I wouldn't leave you like that. Not when my head is full of Naruto knowledge and bizarre ideas, and there's no-one to share it with! **

**So without further ado (though to be fair, that was probably significantly more ado than was required), here is the newest chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.**

**Act 1 – Chapter 2 – Effort**

"No more, _please_ Gai-sensei!" Sakura gasped, desperately wheezing to try to fill her lungs with much-needed air. "We've been at this for hours. No more, _please_."

Gai flashed his trademark smile at her in response. "Now Sakura, we all agreed we would do everything we could do become our very best. So that is what we are doing!" His remark was punctuated, as always, with his trademarked Good Gai Pose©.

Gai speech instilled the intended determination into a few of their eyes, but more than half had already come to the conclusion that tuning out of Gai's speeches was far better for both one's physical and mental well-being. A valiant attempt to continue was made, but very soon absolute fatigue set in, leaving only a few able to stand, and even fewer capable of continuing.

"Yosh!" Gai yelled, oozing excitement. "It is wonderful to see such youthful stamina from such young students.

"Gai-sensei?" Chōji queried. "I understand Sasuke's stamina, but where is Lee's and Naruto's coming from? A week ago they were the dead-lasts, but they're outlasting us every time."

At his question, every ear perked up. Chōji was not the only one to think this. In fact, he simply lost the Jan-Ken-Po tournament to decide who had to ask.

At Chōji's question, Gai's face was overtaken by a look of uncertainty. Seeing that Gai was unsure how to answer a question unknowingly loaded with an S-rank secret, Asuma stepped forwards.

"Well" Asuma began, somewhat hesitantly. "Sasuke's stamina is no mystery, he is one of the few that have consistently trained outside of class, so it stands to reason his physical conditioning is at a level beyond many others in our group. Lee's incredible progress is a result of his renewed work ethic. After Lee had his situation explained to him, and what his dream would require, his determination and effort has outstripped everyone's significantly, and his growth has followed that path. Let him be an example to all of you that if you rest on your laurels, simply relying on your status as a clan member and their training, you will rapidly be overtaken by those who, plain and simple, want it more than you do."

There were varying reactions to his words, from the starry-eyed adoration of Lee and Naruto, to the scoff from Neji. Seeing that the class were busy taking in this lesson, Asuma gave himself a mental pat on the back for directing the group's attention away from a sensitive topic. He was of course fully aware of why Naruto has such an enormous amount of physical energy – by Kami, look at the boy, even Lee and Sasuke were sweating profusely, whereas he was almost recovered! – but he was forbidden from giving his students that information.

"And me Asuma-sensei?" Naruto asked hopefully. Naruto had always had significant amounts of stamina. This workout from Gai-sensei was undoubtedly strenuous, but he knew he could do more, though he would never say so. He had learned early on that commenting on things like that was met with ridicule, disdain or disbelief, and commonly a mixture of the three. Secretly, he'd always held out that his endurance was so high because of a family trait; maybe it was something awesome given to him from his parents!

"Yours is a slightly different case Naruto" Kakashi intervened, knowing full well Asuma's and Gai's current predicament. "Your physical energy is a lot more plentiful than most people, allowing you to continue well beyond even the point where other ninja would have collapsed from exhaustion."

Naruto couldn't help the grin that broke out across his face. Whether indirect or not, intended or not, that was the first real compliment he had ever received concerning his abilities. Naruto opened his mouth to being bragging about being closer to being Hokage than ever, but, meeting Kakashi's eye, suddenly didn't feel the need to. He closed his mouth and settled for fixing Kakashi with his widest grin.

"Why would the dobe have that much physical energy?" Sasuke asked.

"That is a story for another lesson" Kakashi replied, silencing all protests with a pointed look. "Bear in mind, that any person I hear complain in the next five minutes, five minutes we have kindly allowed you to rest in might I add, will be clearly demonstrating that they have plenty of energy left, and will be given to Gai to burn off any extraneous…_youthfulness_."

Each and every mouth snapped shut, all colour draining from their collective faces. He didn't raise his voice like Iruka-sensei, but Kakashi-sensei's quiet sadism was a _lot _scarier.

* * *

After two weeks of this torture, each and every one of the students were showing marked improvements in their physical abilities. Kurenai, Kakashi and Asuma observed a training session Gai was leading, drilling them in increasingly strenuous manoeuvres. This was a completely usual occurrence, if it wasn't for the presence of the Third Hokage stood next to Asuma, contentedly observing the students as Gai put them through their paces.

"They've come a long way already" Hiruzen commented. "There were very few of them that could have lived through this exercise before you've all began teaching them."

He nodded happily as he saw them navigate a particularly tough obstacle. "Yes, they're coming along nicely." He turned to the senseis. "I agree with the observations you noted in your fortnightly report. I trust your judgement to take them in the correct directions, just keep me updated regarding their progress."

The three shinobi responded with a chorused "Hai!" as their leader used a seal-less Shunshin to disappear. Smiling as they watched their students collapse at the end of the course, it was easy to see the changes in them. Changes which, they noted with some pride, they caused and nurtured.

Kiba had lost a lot of the puppy fat present on his face, leaving an angular face which, framed by his canine-like canines and animalistic face-markings, looked quite intimidating, even more so when he smiled.

Shino looked, well, the same to be honest. His body may have been leaner, he may have put on muscle, but underneath that coat, it was impossible to tell.

Hinata had at first ignored the pleading of Kurenai to replace her ever present hooded jacket with something more fitting, but after another fainting spell, Kurenai stole her jacket and sealed it into a scroll, promising that later that year, she would be able to retrieve it herself. As much as it hurt to have one of her favourite students so upset with her, there was more than just vanity to Kurenai's thinking. A jacket that thick was cumbersome and limiting, removed any threat of intimidation or seduction from Hinata's bearing and was so very warm, that when thoroughly exhausting activity was required, it was draining Hinata of her stamina a great deal quicker than normal. Kurenai could only hope that by exposing her to the elements and the boys growing admiration of her lithe figure, her confidence in herself and her body, including her body image, would be improved.

Ino was the direct opposite of Hinata. Taking Kurenai's advice to heart, and seemingly taking Kurenai herself as a role model, Ino had forgone her diet in favour of attempting to burn off anything she ate. The thinking behind it being that if she is going to eat the food, she'll need to make sure it doesn't show! Thankfully, her warped thinking actually worked perfectly for her, as it meant that she ate regularly and worked harder for the more she ate. Of course, the more she exercised, the more nutrients her body required, meaning the more she felt the need to eat. It really was a happy little circle that left her healthy, though tired, and more proud of the way her body looked than ever. And she was more than happy to show it off, judging from the toned midriff displayed under her crop top and the exposed legs covered only by a skirt and some bandages.

Chōji was the same size as before, though that was to be expected. At first, the changing images of his comrades around him lead to Chōji being considered to be the one making the least progress, until he connected a right hook with Kiba's hasty block and sent him flying out of the ring. A brief explanation about Chōji's clan's abilities and their relation to their calorie intake, combined with that somewhat terrifying display of strength ensured any thoughts of bullying the 'pleasingly plump' boy were quickly squashed.

Shikamaru had, despite desperately avoiding as much active participation as possible, found himself getting stronger and faster. It was an excellent demonstration that no matter the intellect, Gai's sheer determination could get through and the man really did _nag like a fiend_! Every day he would drag, often literally, Shikamaru around the field until Shikamaru would start running under his own power, simply to save the skin of his backside.

Sakura had considered Kurenai as a role model, but, upon realising the potential of her crush, she realised that she would need to aim bigger, as only the absolute best could be the partner of the last loyal Uchiha. She quickly came to the conclusion that the great Tsunade Senju was her target to surpass: this realisation came with an enormous amount of disheartenment, after asking her senseis about Tsunade, and finding her comparisons between herself and the legend to be incredibly lacking. By all accounts, the woman was incredibly fast, incredibly intelligent, had incredible control of her body and chakra and was one of the strongest shinobi in history, despite kunoichi traditionally being physically weaker than shinobi. Tsunade was a roaring bonfire of ability compared to Sakura's candle, and that _simply would not do._ She had subsequently launched herself into training with a vigour that pleasantly surprised all those around her, especially her teachers. To be fair, the happiness she gained from seeing that look on her teachers' faces, that look of astonishment mixed with respect, was nothing compared to the unbridled glee that a simple nod of acknowledgement from Sasuke resulted in.

Sasuke had taken to the new training regime with aplomb. He threw himself into every exercise and challenge with incredible vigour, and the results were rapidly becoming apparent. His lean build had become even leaner, but the exposed muscle and skin that his casual t-shirt and shorts combo showed clearly displayed the results of his hard work. After a conversation with Kakashi, who subsequently held a frank discussion with both Sasuke and the Sandaime Hokage, he had been appeased that they are doing what they can to make him more powerful, and that he will become more powerful by allowing those stronger than him to help then he will by going it alone. Of course, he held every intention of destroying Itachi when he met him, and he would do it _alone_. He would grudgingly accept what assistance he could get to get to that level, but once that level was attained, he would avenge his clan with his own strength.

Neji had quickly established himself as the strongest of the trainees. Having had a lot of training from his clan, combined with his own prodigal talent and an additional year, he was already at a solid genin level. In any taijutsu spars, he was undefeated. All in all, he was only held back by his arrogance (which his constant victories over his peers did not help) and his refusal to learn any but the bare minimum ninjutsu required to pass the academy. Being aware of his reliance on his family's taijutsu and dōjutsu above all, he applied himself to the physical regimen with laudable drive in order to improve his abilities as quickly as possible, and his growth in taijutsu was only rivalled by one of his comrades.

That comrade was Rock Lee. Lee had mimicked Gai in every way possible, from his insane work ethic to his more than questionable choices of attire. He sported a tight green jumpsuit, much like his idol, and had been seen practicing his Good Gai Pose© in the bathroom mirrors. Arriving at the academy at the beginning of class, the remainder of the group would be greeted by the sight of Lee training in the field, either attacking the training posts with single-minded determination, or occasionally even sparring with Gai to find holes in his taijutsu, which were admittedly plentiful at the moment. Leaving after school, the sight was the same. Whereas the rest of the would-be genin would leave to return home, Lee would remain in the training fields working until closer to sunset, at which point he would retire for the night. His taijutsu was quickly becoming quite deadly, being able to crack the training posts with his strongest punches and being able to move quickly enough to cross Kakashi's stone sparring ring in a single bound.

Tenten was the best weapons user in the group. From the beginning, she was clearly the best shot with kunai, shuriken or any other thrown weapon, and was one of the best with every melee weapon that the class had to offer. Her fūinjutsu had stalled, which she had at first complained about, but was quickly placated with the knowledge that there would be specific fūinjutsu lessons later in the year.

Naruto's questionable work ethic had been replaced with an inner fury that no-one could quite place. For some reason, the boy had been overcome with a determination to become the very best. He spent every evening after school training with Lee in the fields, often staying after Lee had left, though if asked he would simply reply he was 'catching up the time he slept away whilst bushy-brows was training'. His taijutsu had improved by leaps and bounds, becoming less and less of that a brawler and more of a distinct, flowing style. Whilst he didn't have the benefit of an actual style, his movements had become far more precise and powerful, the hours of hard graft allowing him to keep up with Lee in terms of taijutsu, despite having elected not to learn any of the taijutsu styles offered by their senseis.

All in all, the senseis were more than happy with their progress. In fact, their young charges probably deserved a break from Gai…

"Alright, that's enough for today" Kakashi announced to the gathered trainees. At once, their bodies stilled and their breath caught in their throats. They were leaving early?

The first screams broke through as Naruto cowered, covering his head as if expecting the sky to descend upon them.

"Very funny" Kakashi deadpanned. "I'm not that bad."

"Yes you are sensei" Sakura replied. "You're an absolute slave-driver to be honest."

Kakashi recoiled in offense. "Maa, I'm not even the one training you, the majority of the time it's Gai. Blame him!"

Pointedly ignoring Gai's indignant yelling, Shikamaru piped up. "Well sensei, you're the one that tells Gai when to start and when to stop, _and_ you're the one that extended the school day by three hours. Gai is simply a minion, we know better than to blame someone for following orders."

Kakashi also decided to ignore Gai's yelled protests (if it works, don't fix it). "Hmm, I guess you're right.". The genin held their breath hopefully as an almost remorseful look made its way onto what little of Kakashi's face was visible. Finally, he would release them from this training regime and put Gai back into the box of sin and crazy that he got him out of.

"Oh well."

A chorus of moans and face-vaults met his blatantly unsympathetic outlook.

Asuma stepped in, a small smile on his face. "Alright you lot, enough joking around. We're sending you home early so that you can rest because tomorrow we're going to start working with chakra" – he patiently paused to wait for the cheers and whoops to die down – "so we need you at your peak first thing tomorrow morning. The first thing we're doing is an individual test, and you want to represent yourself well in front of your peers, don't you?"

He panned his gaze around the faces looking up at him from where they were sprawled. "Off you go". At his words, the genin clambered to their feet and quickly left the training field, looking forward to the first early day they'd had since their new training program had begun.

* * *

When the senseis arrived at the classroom, they were surprised to see each and every member of their class present and expectantly staring at the door. A quick glance at the clock confirmed that they were indeed half an hour early as planned. This was an eager class.

"Ok, first things first, can anyone tell me what chakra actually is?" Kurenai queried the class.

"Chakra is the blend of physical and spiritual energies that a shinobi makes use of to perform techniques" Sakura recited, sounding for all the world like a girl who'd swallowed a textbook.

Kurenai sighed at the expected response. With that girl in the class, any questions you asked were mostly pointless unless they were specifically directed at someone else. It was great she was so keen, and it's always encouraging to see someone with such a great deal of book-smarts, but it made gauging the other students' progress difficult.

"Shikamaru!" Asuma barked, calling up to the pineapple-haired boy who was currently staring out of the window in clear disinterest. "Name me six elemental forms chakra can come in"

"Wind, water, earth, lightning, fire and... wood" Shikamaru replied lazily, not even looking away from the window.

Eyebrows raised around the class. Every so often, Shikamaru displayed glimpses of intelligence and insight that went far beyond his performances in class. With Naruto's taijutsu improving at the rate it was, and with Lee's already being actually quite impressive, Shikamaru had filled the now vacant dead-last slot of the class.

Of course, this had accompanied the occasional smatterings of ill will towards the boy. The students were so used to having one of their weaker peers as a crutch to make them feel better about their strengths; it was almost instinctive to aim at the weakest in the class. However, anyone who had attempted it had quickly been shouted down by a combination of Naruto, Lee and Kakashi himself. Whilst Naruto and Lee had been on the receiving end of such treatment and thus sought to protect a comrade from the experience, Kakashi's reasoning was simple. He was deadly serious when he said this group would be a cohesive unit, and if he had to crush a few egos in the process, well, that was just a bonus.

By encouraging those weaker in the class to demonstrate abilities outside of what had been seen from them previously, it was quickly becoming difficult to isolate which of the trainees was the weakest, as they each had their own strengths. It was of course still clear which few were the strongest, but the weakest had been edged into the middle of the pack with the rest, leaving no dead-weight at the bottom.

Kurenai cleared her throat to attract the class' attention back to her.

"What we're going to be testing now is capacity and control. These are the two aspects of chakra that we talk about when referring to a shinobi's abilities. These things are exactly as they sound: a shinobi's chakra capacity is the amount in their body, and their chakra control is the ability to use that chakra efficiently and precisely.

"Traditionally, shinobi have higher capacities whilst kunoichi have higher control, though there are of course exceptions to this rule. Kushina Uzumaki for example, was known to have an enormous amount of chakra, comparable to the Hokage himself."

In fact, Kushina Uzumaki had chakra levels well beyond those of the Third Hokage, even in his prime, but it was better for the class to have less information concerning that topic than more.

"Wait, Uzumaki?!" Naruto slammed his hand on the top of his desk as he rocketed up from his chair. "What do you mean Uzumaki? Was she a relative of mine?"

The rest of the class looked at Naruto with a myriad of reactions. For some, it was rather irrelevant if the woman was related to Naruto or not, the woman was clearly long dead, given the way Kurenai spoke about her. Others looked at Naruto with something akin to pity, it being painfully obvious how desperate he was for any information considering his family. For people like Tenten and Lee, that pain was all too close to their heart too.

"I'm not sure I'm afraid Naruto" Kurenai lied smoothly. "At one point, it was a very common name in Konoha and elsewhere in the elemental nations, but that's a point for another lesson."

Naruto nodded absentmindedly, his mind already whirring with the possibilities. If this Kushina really was a relative of his, maybe there were people that knew her. Maybe those people knew someone who could give him information on her, or her acquaintances, or her friends, or her team, her sensei, anything. Maybe through her, he could find something about his family.

He was jolted out of his introspection by an eraser to the forehead. Rubbing the red indentation it left, he fixed Kakashi with his best glare, but wisely chose not to interrupt Kurenai mid-flow.

"Sakura, why don't you start us off?" Kurenai asked kindly.

As much as it pained him to say, Naruto was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he needed to start being a tad more attentive. He couldn't afford to miss anything here in class; he needed to get better as quickly as possible!

Sakura proceeded to the front of the class and stood facing the other students. The senseis had spread themselves around the front of the room, each taking a different angle of the girl in front of them. Gathering her hands into the ram sign in front of her, she began furiously channelling her chakra and bringing as much of it to the surface as possible. Within seconds, she was running short of breath, but she maintained the effort until she saw a smiling nod from Kurenai and a thumbs up from Gai. Allowing her hands to drop tiredly to her side, she smiled and walked back to her desk.

Asuma spoke to the class. "The purpose of this exercise is to judge your control and your capacity. Sakura channelled her chakra incredibly quickly, demonstrating a great deal of control, but judging from what we could sense, her chakra levels are very low. That will be what we need to work on with you Sakura."

Sakura gritted her teeth, but nodded her head. Nobody was expecting her to be perfect at this stage, better to be refined than a brute. She nodded her head more energetically. That's true, better control means she was more refined. More lady-like, perfect for Sasuke-kun. A smile broke out across her face. She could work with this.

One by one, the students proceeded up to the front of the class and demonstrated their chakra to the others. Some, like Shino, had excellent control but low reserves, putting him in the same focus group as Sakura. Unsurprisingly, Chōji's reserves were decently sizeable, but his control was lacking.

Sasuke's demonstration ticked one more box in the prodigy list. Needing only marginally more time than Sakura had required, Sasuke's reserves were sufficiently enough that a faint blue haze enveloped him when he called on his chakra, and he was able to hold it for almost a minute before exhaustion forced him to stop.

After Sasuke, last in fact, came Naruto. The orange-clad boy bounded to the front of the room and clasped his hands into the ram sign as instructed.

"Ready when you are sensei's" he announced, mentally preparing himself to channel his chakra.

At Kakashi's nod, he began dredging his chakra up from his core. As always, it felt sluggish and heavy; moving more like oil than the water it had always been described as. Whereas chakra was normally described as a flowing river inside one's body, it always felt to Naruto more like an ocean. His chakra didn't circulate around his body, ebbing and flowing with his breath and his movements. It was just...there.

After about five seconds, the class began to mutter. This was already over twice as long as the next slowest person. Even Lee, with what pitiful chakra he had, had already channelled his chakra and stopped channelling by now.

Ten seconds. Nothing. Fifteen. Nothing. Twenty seconds. Something. A lot of something.

The sensei's eyes widened as they felt a surge, their finely honed instincts, sharpened through years of combat and experience, screaming at them to move.

Before the class' astonished eyes, a blue aura exploded around Naruto, surging and coiling, writhing like living fire around his body. It was even causing Ino's hair to sway slightly, as though in a light breeze.

Naruto continued to hold the ram sign as he pulled more and more chakra from inside of him. Frankly, through the blue haze, he could barely see his sensei's, let alone be able to see one of them nod. After seeing his peers continue to draw on their chakra until they were near exhausting, Naruto assumed this was the point of the exercise, and began drawing it out with renewed vigour.

Oddly, he found that the more he was drawing out, the easier it was to move. In fact, as he found himself channelling more and more chakra, it became easier to channel even greater amounts. He could feel the energy roaring through his veins, making his heart race as the adrenaline kicked in.

Of course, it was not the only thing roaring. Outside of Naruto's little chakra-induced meditation, it was far less calm. With the amounts of chakra Naruto was now channelling, the sensei's had long since stopped bothering trying to measure it and were simply waiting for him to exhaust himself.

Kakashi had to hold back a snort as he observed Naruto's form bubbling with excess chakra. Combine the metaphorical chakra monster that was Kushina Uzumaki, with the literal chakra monster that was the Kyuubi no Kitsune and you got more chakra than most likely any shinobi in history. Combine in the prodigious talent of the Yondaime Hokage, and you got a shinobi with the potential to make the world quake beneath him.

Finally, Naruto's channelling stopped, leaving him panting and gasping for air, sweat covering his body in a sheen of effort. Looking up at the class and his senseis, he was surprised to see looks of shock on all of their faces, including the normally unflappable Asuma and Kurenai. In fact, the only people that didn't look completely surprised were Kakashi, but then who knew what he was thinking behind that mask, and Sasuke, who looked positively murderous.

"Well, that was surprising." For once, Gai spoke softly, this as much as anything drawing the class out of their shock. "That amount of chakra? I've never even heard of a shinobi with that level at your age."

Naruto fixed Gai with a tired grin, tiredly panting out "Heh, told you I was awesome."

Kakashi hmm'd, somehow humming loudly enough to be heard across the class. "Your capacity is definitely beyond that which we'd expect from anyone at your age, but your control is absolutely shocking. In a situation where it would be required, you would be dead before you could effectively channel your chakra."

This sobering statement brought Naruto crashing back to...Earth (?) as he marched back up to his desk.

Between Naruto's exhaustion, the excitement of what they'd just done and the enigma that was Naruto, the class was plenty busy enough to justify missing the subtle glances that the senseis sent each other.

Subtle mentions of his mother, check. Demonstrated chakra capacity, check. Mentioned physical abilities, including recovery time, check. Made sure Shikamaru was paying sufficient attention to pique his curiosity, check.

They'd played their hand. The rest was no longer up to them.

* * *

**Well, that was fun. I tried to include a tad more humour in the writing, though I'm not sure it came through. I think I'm just more of a serious writer than a joker, despite being sure that my true calling is a professional sit-down comedian... Hey, who brought a tumbleweed?!**

**In this chapter I've began to deviate ever so slightly from the standard fanfics you read on this site, as well as from canon. I've always been confused about the inconsistencies in Naruto's chakra capacity. He's an Uzumaki Jinchuriki, so he should have chakra rolling off him in veritable waves, and yet Kakashi states in Shippuden that Naruto only has four times the amount of chakra that he does, though he has 100 times as much if he wasn't restraining the Kyuubi. I can understand that, one of the largest chakra sources in history is jammed in behind his navel, makes sense that his body would have to divert a great deal of power to holding that back. But we've seen him make thousands of clones, those clones often performing jutsu of their own, despite the creators state of near-complete exhaustion. Kakashi when he was quite tired in the Wave arc, could make maybe ten. It's just never added up to me. They comment on Kakashi's lack of stamina, then Naruto's ungodly amount, then the comparison between the two is underwhelming at best. So I broke out, and I made his chakra overwhelming instead. As a matter of fact, he's got a lot more than I showed, but he just can't use it at the moment. Bad control strikes again!**

**I struggled to find a more...flowing way of describing the changes to each character, so in the end I thought adding the Hokage to the mix could forgive the observations being close to a report status. There is also a great deal more development aimed at certain characters, which is both accidental and intended. I have my favourite characters, we all do, but there are also characters that would have been effected a great deal more by a physical regimen. Kiba and Shino, probably not so much. Lee and Naruto, enormously.**

**Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Leave a review, let me know what you liked, disliked, hated or loved, and we'll see if we can't get more (or less) of it in there for you!**

**Toodle-pip.**


	6. Act 1 - Chapter 3 - Preparations

**A/N: I thought I'd use this little space to answer some of my lovely reviewers! You showed your appreciation for me, it's only fair that I reciprocate.**

**theIrishWriter: I know that the manga had the chakra colours as being yellow, but I've always preferred the light blue they used for human chakra in the anime. It makes the bright yellow of his bijū mode more impressive in my opinion, which is always a plus. Whilst I also agree that there's no doubt Kakashi improved, I'm sure that training with an absolute powerhouse like Jiraiya caused Naruto's already significant chakra reserves to increase even further, not even taking into account the bleeding effect from the eight-trigrams seal. If anything, the gulf between Naruto's and Kakashi's chakra would have expanded, not shrunk, especially considering their ages.  
****From what I've seen, the kage bunshin is perfect for Naruto because it's impossible to overload: the more chakra you throw at it, the more clones you get. Perfect for someone with far more chakra than they can feasibly control.  
****For your question, all of their taijutsu will be augmented by their chakra, though some in some slightly different ways than others.**

**jojo061: I'm really glad to hear you like the story, always pleasing to hear your work is enjoyable. I agree with the updating, I have a few stories that I read that I have the same problem with, a problem I'm now guilty of! I'll confess, things got on top of me and it wasn't until I got a random follow weeks after publishing that this story even re-entered my mind. Hopefully I will be able to update more frequently, I'm thinking of slightly shortening the chapters to facilitate more frequent updates, most likely fortnightly, though I'm terrible at scheduling. Ideally no more than a fortnight, but probably somewhere between that and a week.**

**BDude0000: I'm happy that you like the story, I've always thought I might as well try my hand at writing, I've read almost every fanfiction on the site after all! I like the idea of different quantities and different densities; it's what I was alluding to when I referred to how heavy Naruto said his chakra felt. The fact that his chakra is dense (and thus extra potent) is definitely going to come in a little later.**

**And for my first Guest review… I have, I have, I have!**

**Thanks to all those that reviewed, and sorry to those that didn't but had the first few pages taken up by my responses! I like discussions about characters and plots and such (as you can see) and I dislike the idea that you guys won't get a response. If that bothers you, review and tell me. I'll then reply. Mmm, paradoxical.**

* * *

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.**

**Act 1 – Chapter 3 – Preparations**

"Argh, this is impossible!"

Naruto's frustrated cry echoed around the training field. Looking up from his book, Kakashi gazed over at him with barely concealed amusement in his eye. He really should have taken up teaching earlier than this, Minato was correct. Watching your young charges get angrier and angrier as they failed again and again was actually quite funny.

"You're still using way too much chakra Naruto" Kurenai patiently explained. "You have to find the correct amount to stick yourself to the tree without damaging it."

A step back from the scene would show two senseis, one looking reluctantly amused, the other not even attempting to hide his amusement. The object of their humour was the trainee in orange, vigorously rubbing his sore backside whilst loudly yelling at the tree in front of him. An outside observer would comment that the tree looked a lot worse for wear than the student, with cracked bark and jagged edges, even spots where small specks of light could be seen shining through.

'His first attempts truly were golden' Kakashi mused to himself. 'Only Naruto would be told it's a control exercise then use as much chakra as possible.'

In fact, Naruto had nearly put his foot clean through the tree, only stopping when he began to hyperventilate that he was being sucked into the tree. He then promptly fell on his rear for the first, but most _certainly_ not the last time.

"Maybe we need to start you on something a tad smaller" Kakashi suggested, holding a hand up to forestall the expected objections. "I know you never give up on something, but don't think of this as giving up. Consider it… a tactical retreat. We'll get you a slightly different approach, and then you can come back to this exact tree with a whole new plan. You remember tactical retreats?"

Indeed, Naruto did remember tactical retreats. He, along with all of the other trainees, had been forced to participate in tactical lessons and subsequent drills. Whilst the drills were ok, he'd always been good at thinking on the fly anyway, the lessons were so _very_ boring. At least, until Asuma had the idea of having Kurenai use genjutsu on them to recreate old battles in their minds. Seeing the Third Hokage in his prime really affected Naruto. He'd always seen the Old Man as a kindly grandfather figure: to see him raining down fiery missiles upon opposing armies like a vengeful god really altered the way he perceived the Hokage, and really the idea of a shinobi in general.

Being able to see the plans and tactics as they were carried out was incredibly helpful to many of the members of the class. Whilst there were many in the class that learnt perfectly well by reading the theory, and there were a few more that just innately understood the concepts behind them (damn genius Uchiha), Naruto was a physical learner. He learnt by doing and recreating, and seeing went a long way to making that process easier.

Begrudgingly, Naruto accepted his sensei's advice and turned away from the hated tree. "What now then Kakashi-sensei?"

With a slight sigh Kakashi considered the best advice he could give to his young charge. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, he looked up into the smiling face of Kurenai.

"I've got this Kakashi; go take care of the others" she reassured him. "We both know my control is excellent, and it's not just natural. After all, I've been training in chakra control my entire life; I've created more exercises than most people even know exist."

Kakashi eye-smiled in response, realising that there were probably fairly few people in the world better suited to teach someone control than his red-eyed colleague. With the wealth of experience she had in training this exact topic, she was by far the best one out of the four of them to teach the boy to control his unruly chakra. Kakashi, being the natural genius he was, always had very good chakra control without having to devote any significant time to the subject. Gai had honed his body to such an absurd degree that the only time his chakra ever even left his body was whilst summoning, and he performed that jutsu extremely rarely. Asuma had always just preferred to go with raw power over finesse, relying on wind chakra and those vicious chakra blades of his to slice his enemy to pieces, as opposed to trying to ensnare them in a genjutsu.

The only issue with having Kurenai teach Naruto to control his chakra was that Naruto's unique situation was so very different to Kurenai's. Whilst she had always had above average chakra control which she had fine-tuned to almost perfection, she had never dealt with the sheer quantity of chakra that Naruto had. As a genjutsu specialist, Kurenai's reserves were rather low, and considering what Kakashi already knew of Naruto's heritage and situation, he was sure that the blonde Uzumaki could become a veritable ninjutsu powerhouse with the right training. Given some semblance of control over his chakra so that he could efficiently utilise the reserves he already had, he would have the ability to launch successive ninjutsu and simply bury his opponents under a barrage of attacks.

Nodding in acceptance, Kakashi walked over to the other side of the training field to rejoin the other two senseis as they took the students through tree walking. Many students had already completed the task to a satisfactory degree, making it to the very top of the tree before steadily descending, to demonstrate complete control over the exercise, regardless of momentum or direction.

Others still had not quite completed it, but had made excellent headway and would no doubt have the exercise mastered by the end of the week. Each student that completed their task would be forced to repeat it until walking on any surface, be it horizontal or vertical, would be second nature.

Naruto had been distanced from the rest of the group for two reasons. The first and most obvious was his complete lack of progress. To be surrounded by his peers, each and every one of them entirely outperforming him on every attempt, was proving to be disheartening for even the legendarily steadfast young man. The second, and somewhat more devious of the reasons, was because it bred curiosity. By sectioning Naruto away from his peers, they were more aware of what he was doing, simply because he was doing it alone. This meant that there wasn't a single one among them that was unaware of Naruto's ill-fated attempt at tree climbing that almost punched a hole _through _the tree. For those who were struggling to keep their chakra levels sufficiently high to facilitate the exercise, this was an extreme eye-opener to just how big the gulf between their capacities was.

Even Sasuke was beginning to feel the drain from repeating this exercise so much, and he was actually succeeding! The dobe was attempting to ascend the tree and with each failed step was blasting it with a (compared to their class' levels) massive surge of chakra. With another scowl over at the enigmatic failure, Sasuke launched himself with renewed vigour at his tree, desperate and determined to not be outdone.

* * *

"Ok Naruto, we're going to start off with the very basics" Kurenai began explaining her idea to Naruto. "At the moment, your chakra is moving erratically" - she paused, seeing the blank look on his face - "moving randomly around your body. We need it to be more conscious, more controlled. I want you to recreate what you did in the classroom a few days ago for me. Gather your chakra and prepare to release it in a burst. Keep your eyes closed and only open them when you've gathered enough chakra to be able to release it. Ok?"

She took a step back to give him some breathing room and silently prayed that this idea would work. Truthfully, she was improvising here. Yes, she had told Kakashi that she could take care of this problem, but that didn't mean she was exactly sure how she would go about solving it in the first place. Normally chakra control problems only become an issue for chūnin or above, as their chakra supplies begin growing in their teenage years along with their bodies, but their training in control rarely advanced beyond water-walking. The idea that an academy student could have control problems of this magnitude was completely unheard of, certainly undocumented and thus there was no help to be had, no guidelines to be followed, just her and her student following along with her very best guess.

Naruto sighed to himself as he clasped his hands into the familiar Ram sign. He knew that he was having trouble, and he admitted that sometimes it was best to try again at a later date if no headway was being made, but this just felt like taking two steps backwards. He'd only just managed to access his chakra in the classroom before, and with his confidence in his abilities being at just about an all-time low, it would be so easy to just give it up. Admit defeat. Step away and declare it to be beyond him, not possible, out of his reach.

Shaking his head to himself, Naruto sighed again, trying to clear his head of his depressing thoughts. Besides, even if he gave it up, what would he do? He couldn't be a civilian: they all hated him, barring the Ichiraku family and the odd civilian or two which he saw in the street that would throw him sympathetic looks. He could never bring himself to become one of them. And after all, one of the most important people in his life clearly wanted this for him.

Naruto did not pride himself on his intelligence. Even as dense as he was, he wasn't dense enough to not be able to notice how dense he was. But, people he could understand. There may be social interactions that were outside of his scope, but that was not because they were difficult or complicated, purely because they were foreign. Living on his own for such a long time, he had to learn how to cope and be self-sufficient, and that included the healthy dose of street-smarts required to survive. Naruto knew when he was being played. Naruto knew when he was been lead on.

As far back as he could remember, the Old Man had told him tales of the legendary warriors known as shinobi: from the great battles they did, to epic missions where they finally won the day, saved the princess and were lauded as the heroes they so clearly were. Now, of course he knew better, part of Kakashi's 'education' about the shinobi system was explaining, in a frightening amount of detail, just to what extent the whole system was messed up. Training children to be able to sneak around undetected and straight up murder another human, all in the faith that their village leader, a man they _know_ would always act in the best interest of the village, was not having them murder someone who, as hard as it was to find in their world, was innocent.

That was the key. The Hokage acted in the best interests of Konoha: if that meant that a rival businessman had set up nearby that was draining coin out of the village's coffers and so an angry village merchant raised the funds to have that businessman assassinated, well, it was all in the name of the village.

Naruto knew that there was nasty, gritty bits of shinobi life, but he hadn't when he'd signed up. The Old Man had ingrained into him so heavily that the best, the _only_ way of life was the shinobi way, he'd almost cried from excitement and happiness upon being told he was allowed to join the academy. Snorting to himself, he remembered that the Hokage had even given him a choice as to whether he wanted to join up or not, as though that was really any choice at all.

But if the Hokage wished him to become a shinobi, he would try his best to not let him down. Regardless of how he'd maneuvered himself and Naruto so that Naruto would willingly choose this lifestyle, the Hokage had always acted with his best interests at heart. He had gotten Naruto food when the shopkeepers wouldn't sell, he had gotten Naruto shelter when the orphanage no longer wanted him. When the Old Man acted, he acted for a reason, and Naruto trusted him enough to believe that the academy and being a shinobi was really what was best for him. He just wished someone would explain why.

Searching deep inside himself for that well of energy, Naruto focussed on the euphoric feeling merging with his chakra gave him, allowing the memories of using his chakra to fill his mind and guide him to where it was located. Gritting his teeth, he drew on his chakra, allowing it to well up inside of him until he felt his body about to burst. Opening his eyes, he made eye contact with his female sensei, silently asking her how to proceed.

"Now, force it back inside" Kurenai answered his unspoken question with an unexpected answer.

In shock, Naruto forced the energy to dissipate, feeling it return to the flow around his body that was ever-present. "Why did you have me release it, I'd finally gotten it!" Naruto yelled, angry that all of his considerable effort went to waste.

"That was good, I could feel the chakra building up and you did well to hold it in. Now do it again, but faster" Kurenai replied, entirely unruffled by his outburst.

Grumbling under his breath, Naruto again began to draw his chakra out until he was struggling to keep it inside. Making eye contact once more, his shoulders drooped as he allowed the chakra to subside, following the mouthed order of his sensei to "Release". Looking at the unsympathetic gaze of his teacher, his shoulders drooped further. Something told him that this was going to be a _very_ long day.

* * *

Kurenai cast a calculating eye over Naruto's form as he gathered his chakra up for roughly the thirtieth time. She could see his frame quaking from being forced to perform such an unnatural action so many times. Chakra, once formed, was designed to be released, at least until training had been undertaken to allow that chakra to be effectively used as a taijutsu stimulant. To force the boy to keep retaining that energy was no doubt uncomfortable and incredibly annoying for him, but it was serving its purpose.

Each time he gathered and released his chakra, he was, admittedly without any conscious thought or effort, becoming accustomed to feeling how his chakra moved. The speed at which he could gather his chakra together was reduced by a factor of five in the speed of a day. Whilst this left him as still the slowest in the class by some margin, the time delay between his intended generation of chakra and the actual act was enormously reduced. With a rye smile, Kurenai noted that the progress he'd made during the day was almost entirely down to single-minded determination. The first attempt at gathering his chakra had been slow, but Kurenai was unwilling to rush him as she could see the varying emotions rushing across his face. The boy was good at masking his feelings on a day to day basis, but get him thinking about things and his poker face was worse than Tsunade-sama's!

"Alright, that's enough Naruto" Kurenai said as she made eye contact with Naruto for the thirtieth time that afternoon. "Release the chakra you've built up, but instead of releasing a constant flow, I want you to try to release as much of it as you can at once. The aim of this exercise is to release a pulse of your chakra from your entire body. If you can complete this task, you will be ahead of your classmates, as none of them have gotten up to this point in their training yet."

Knowing that a statement like that would really fire up his determination, Kurenai expected Naruto to give it his all. She did not expect the result.

Naruto listened to his sensei's words, feeling relief at first that he was able to finish this exercise that had become, for want of a better term, torturous. That relief turned into a grin as he realised that by completing this exercise he would be able to finally surpass his classmates in something and show them he was _not_ useless. Feeling his chakra almost at the point of overflowing, as it had been for the last twenty nine times, Naruto allowed that feeling to seep into his entire body. Taking a deep breath, he drew his chakra slightly inwards whilst pulling even more out from his core, feeling his chakra condense and his body tense like a far-too-tightly wound spring, and then forced his chakra from his body in a single powerful surge.

* * *

To the rest of the class, Kakashi signalling the end of their lesson was bliss. When they'd been told a few days ago that they were finally working with chakra, they were ecstatic. They were, of course, incredibly dismayed to find that Kakashi was no less a harsh taskmaster in terms of their chakra than Gai was for their physical fitness. Turning to collect their last sensei and her under-performing charge, they were shocked to see Naruto trembling with exertion as he physically fought some unseen force. The more perceptive amongst them could easily surmise that that force was his own chakra, considering Kakashi had earlier explained to them, after being asked for the eleventh time, that what Naruto was doing was a far more chakra-intensive exercise in order to get him used to the feel of his chakra. As he explained it, Naruto would have to temporarily work on his control in reverse, starting with some bigger steps as they didn't force him to separate his chakra into small amounts, something that would naturally be more difficult with a larger chakra supply.

All day they had seen Naruto work with Kurenai on this unseen exercise, all the while it appeared that Naruto was doing nothing. Although, judging by the fact that Kurenai's face got lighter and lighter as the day progressed, that assumption would be incorrect. To see the boy labour so furiously to complete what appeared to be an endurance task was daunting, especially when the implications were considered. They had barely ever seen Naruto tired, other than first thing in the morning (the boy was most _certainly_ not a morning person), so the fact that this exercise could reduce him to a quivering mess?

The amount of chakra Naruto had built up at this point had created a haze around his body. Considering that the chakra was not yet supposed to be released, it was either a statement of just how poor his control was that he was unable to stop it leaking out, or it was a demonstration of just how much chakra the boy had built up. Knowing Naruto as he did, Kakashi found it easy to guess that it was probably a mixture of the two.

Seeing his two Hyūga students instinctively activate their dōjutsu to try to understand what Naruto was doing, Kakashi made to instruct them to deactivate them for their own safety, but was robbed of the opportunity. With his back turned, Kakashi missed the widening of Kurenai's eyes that would have signalled to him that his time had run out. Instead, he watched two of his students fall to their knees clutching their now-deactivated dōjutsu in pain. He did not, however, miss the tingling on the back of his neck that accompanied the surge of chakra that passed over his body and across the rest of the training field. Neither did his students, now stood gaping at Naruto who was bent double, panting and wheezing from the effort of such a mighty strain.

Straightening up, Naruto fixed Kurenai with a blinding grin. "How was that sensei?!"

From her position on the ground, where Naruto's pulse of chakra had landed her, Kurenai could only nod dumbly. Well, at least her training idea worked.

* * *

"Hokage-sama, they're asking every day at this point, we can't keep them quiet about it for much longer" Asuma explained to Sarutobi. "We've thrown in information about Naruto's physical abilities, heritage, parents and now he's demonstrated to them chakra levels well beyond anything they've been faced with before. There's not a member of that group that think he's not special in some way, they know he's from a clan and they know his stamina, both physical and in terms of chakra, go beyond what could ever be expected of an academy student. Surely, enough seeds have been planted for the information to be given to them now?"

Asuma's reasoning was quite sound, but there was more to it than he said. He, as well as the other senseis, could see how Naruto was affected by everything that had gone on around him. Whilst dangling the information in front of his peers had allowed them to open their minds to the possibility that Naruto was not the no-name, clanless orphan that they thought he was, but that he was someone who potentially had some quite significant background, giving only scraps of information had allowed _him_ to make the connections, but still have no answers. It was quickly decided from looking at his face whenever anything along the lines of his heritage, lineage or differences from his peers came up, that the only thing that upset Naruto more than having no information, was having a little bit of information and the rest withheld.

"They're not quite at the point I want them to be" the Hokage replied, puffing gently on his pipe, seemingly not noticing it had all but gone out during Asuma's speech. "We will wait until the Fūinjutsu lessons have commenced and reached the topic of sealing into objects before breaching the topic with Naruto. Once that has been done, we will explain to the rest of the class during the Uzumaki portion of the clan history lessons about the Kyūbi being sealed into people, especially Kushina Uzumaki who died on October 10th, when the Kyūbi escaped her seal and she died in the process. That will let them know that it is possible to seal it into a person, it's traditionally been an Uzumaki and the dates will match perfectly to Naruto-kun's birthday, which will be brought up at the beginning of the day as celebration."

The embers on the end of the pipe began to glow as the Hokage sent some wind-chakra infused breath down the pipe to stoke the flames. "This way, they will reach the conclusion themselves, without it being forced upon them, and the more level-headed and intelligent of the group will placate the others and make them understand. When the class reconvenes the next day, the entire group will know, they should be largely ok with it, if a little understandably worried but Naruto will have gained a great deal of respect both for his burden and his history."

Asuma smiled at his father as he finished spinning his tale. "You've seriously thought all of this through, have you told anyone your final plans for this?"

"No, you're the first one" the Sandaime admitted. "That's the reason I was so willing to help out with some of the lesson planning, and had so many suggestions as to content. You know how much I despise paperwork of any and all kinds at this point. Why in Kami's name would I volunteer for _more_? Even I cannot lightly break an S-rank secret. Once put in place, an S-rank secret can only be spoken between those authorised to speak and hear of it. I can speak to you about it, because you have prior knowledge and are a jonin. Speaking to academy students? Too low rank, no prior knowledge, that's treason for me as well. That's the only reason i haven't told Naruto-kun myself at this point. Tomorrow, I will repeal the S-rank secret concerning his status as the Kyūbi jinchūriki and explain the situation to Naruto-kun. He will have the evening to think, before hopefully he will become distracted by learning much more about his family, whilst his classmates will gain enough information to deduce his status as the host. Two days Asuma, two days and you're home free."

"Just how long have you been planning this Hokage-sama?" Asuma queried, knowing full well that his father was famous for his brilliant plans laid far in advance. You don't earn the moniker of 'The Professor' by lacking in the mind after all.

"Since I first agreed to Shikaku's idea" the wizened old shinobi smirked happily behind his pipe. "If anyone deserves to benefit from all of this, it's that boy Asuma. People would find out and accept him for it eventually. I'm just helping things along."

Asuma nodded thoughtfully to himself. "So tomorrow you tell the gaki?" At the Hokage's nod, he continued. "Maybe it would be worth having us senseis there. We've gotten pretty close over the past few weeks of training, he especially looks up to Kakashi. I think it will help to have some support."

Sarutobi smiled kindly at his son. "I appreciate the offer, you're probably right. I'm sure the boy is going to have a great deal of anger at me for keeping this from him for so long, but this way you can get rid of any ill feelings he may have towards you for keeping it from him before the next day of school."

Asuma paled, realising that they would most likely be blamed as well for hiding the information from the jinchūriki. "How do we manage this without forcing him away from us? It's obvious he trusts people quite easily, but how easily does he forgive people that break that trust?"

The Sandaime grimaced, for one rare moment his considerable years showing in his face. "We will simply have to appease him." Reaching into his pocket, he threw a sizeable roll of ryō notes to the surprised jōnin.

"Now, where was the address for Ichiraku's…"

* * *

**Hey all, here's the latest update. Fair amount quicker than the last one I'd say, but I'm not 100% sure on it. I felt it was needed to place the final piece of the set up to explain Naruto's...'circumstances', but I'm just not sure how well it flowed. **

**I decided to put a little bit of a twist on the S-rank secret side, because it's always just been a case of, when I read a fanfiction where they explain it to the kids early on, someone just says "by the way, Kyūbi is stuck in Narutos stomach. Kunai, scroll, blah blah blah" and job done. I thought an S-rank secret should be more than that. This is a death-sentence-for-leaking level secret, this is heavy stuff, I just think that even the Hokage needs to be a bit careful about how it's handled. Just because he makes the laws doesn't mean he's above them, right?**

**As for the manga at the moment...there are no words. I'm not sure what's happening to be honest. There's a big fight, Sasuke wants to kill Naruto, Naruto doesn't want to kill Sasuke. Sasuke says "I want to do it alone", Naruto says "You'll become just like Itachi", Sasuke replies "Itachi's dead, YOLO. Except for me. YOLO for you. ILF" (that's I'll Live Forever). I always find in the biggest fight scenes, there's massive explosions, but it's the anime that excels in displaying them, so that's what I really want to see. Physical embodiment of Susanoo vs Naruto with Sage Mode and Sage of Six Paths Chakra? Animation please!**

**Please leave a review, let me know what you liked, what you think could be improved, it's always nice and helpful to hear. Thanks for reading!**

**Toodle-pip.**


	7. Act 1 - Chapter 4 - Revelations

**A/N: Hello good people! Please enjoy the latest edition of Chōshinsei no Naruto!**

**Flash Almighty: Thanks for letting me know you liked it, I thought it would be fun to approach it in a slightly different way. It was!**

**theIrishWriter: Thanks again for reviewing, it's nice to see my story is enjoyed! As for Naruto's latent talent with seals, ******* - sorry, this site blocks spoilers :P.**

**karthik9: Thank you! Here is the latest update, so look forward to the next one please!**

**Mizuhara Setsuna-Chan: Thanks! I have!**

**HjLostDreams: Don't worry, the ramen was a joke. Gotta try to keep these things at least a little light! I can understand people wanting to be angry about it all, but fact of the matter is, Naruto doesn't do that. He's never once gotten angry about the information being kept from him, once he gets the information, he just redoubles his determination. It's one of the things I love about his character, and one I'm desperately trying to do justice to, the fact that his response to adversity isn't to bemoan it, or regret it, but just deal with it and move on. What happened to him sucks, but whining about it won't fix it, and he was hardly the only one suffering. I like that that is the way he instinctively sees it, makes him a very likeable character to me.**

* * *

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.**

**Act 1 – Chapter 4 – Revelations**

"Clan lessons?" Ino sighed. "We already went through this as part of the history lessons last year."

The only students that didn't clearly agree with her were Shikamaru and Naruto. As soon as the lessons were announced, Shikamaru's face descended into a suspicious frown, whilst Naruto's lit up in a hopeful smile. How could he possibly forget: the clan lessons were when they said they'll tell him about the other Uzumaki!

"Your lessons missed out on several important clans, the foremost of which, and the topic of today's lesson, was the Uzumaki clan. We've mentioned them in passing before, but the Uzumaki clan were an important ally of the founding clans of Konoha, and the fact that their history is not taught alongside our own is frankly an oversight that we have been given permission to correct." Kurenai explained.

Almost each and every eye in the class was fixed firmly on Naruto at this point. Not only was he from a clan, but they sounded like they were quite an important clan as well. So why had no-one heard talk of them? Naruto on the other hand, was gazing firmly at his senseis, waiting for them to give him the information he craved. For so long he thought he was alone, but now he had a clan. A family.

Drawing a swirled symbol on the board behind him, he began to outline some background of the Uzumaki clan to his students. "The Uzumaki clan were the ruling clan of Uzushiogakure, the Village Hidden by Whirling Tides. Their island was located just off of the east coast of the Land of Fire, protected by huge whirlpools that protected it from attacking ships and shinobi alike."

Amongst slightly older shinobi like himself and his fellow senseis, knowledge of the Uzumaki clan was widespread. After all, they had been only a generation behind the last Uzumaki in Konoha, Kushina. She would never have allowed anyone to forget _her_ clan.

For the younger generation, they had never seen an Uzumaki other than Naruto, and considering that most people seemed to want to forget the boy was there at all, they were hardly likely to explain to their children that he actually came from a noble clan as old as the Uchiha and Senju themselves.

"The Uzumaki were famed as great warriors. Their chakra was unique in that even the weakest Uzumaki genin had the chakra of a chūnin from any other village. Their control was understandably lacking as standard, but it was usually overlooked by shinobi of their village as they had the raw power to be able to compensate for it. But where the Uzumaki really excelled was in the art of fūinjutsu, of sealing."

Kakashi panned his single eye around the class, chuckling internally as he saw Tenten gazing starry-eyed at Naruto's back.

"In fact, many of the seal-based defenses of this village, found in the walls, the gates and several key structures were placed there by Uzumaki seal masters at the founding of the village. The relationship between Konoha and Uzushio was incredibly strong at the founding of the village, so much so that the wife of the First Hokage was the clan heir from the Uzumaki clan. Mito Uzumaki came from the Uzumaki clan soon after the founding of Konoha to be with her husband, and brought with her a great wealth of sealing knowledge and experience, which she then used to protect her new village to the best of her considerable abilities, and many of her original seals can still be found in the structure of the village today.

"The Uzumaki were also legendary for their stamina. It was not unusual for a healthy Uzumaki to live well into his nineties, and there were multiple credible records of several Uzumaki reaching over a hundred years old. The reason for this was never abundantly clear, but it was quite well held that the Uzumaki trait was quite heavily predisposed towards Yang chakra, leaving them with a great deal of chakra and physical life force, but often leaving them lacking in the finesse and control departments. Whether or not this was the reason for Uzumakis not training much in control, or if it simply a consequence, is a question that is likely to go unanswered, at least unless our resident Uzumaki reaches the point where he can delve into such questions himself." Kakashi eye-smiled at Naruto during his last sentence, making it incredibly obvious that there was no mistaking it: Naruto was an Uzumaki, through and through.

"Kakashi-sensei" Naruto spoke up, his voice being clearly heard though it was no more than a whisper. "What happened to the Uzumaki?"

It was only then that the ryo dropped for the remainder of the class. Naruto being all alone. The rest of them never having heard of the Uzumaki. Referring to them constantly in the past tense. Casting their eyes across to Naruto, their worries were confirmed.

With a sigh, Kakashi began to break his blonde student's heart. "The Uzumaki were destroyed between the Second and Third Great Shinobi World Wars by an unknown enemy." A sharp intake of breath was heard, but Kakashi drove on.

"Kushina Uzumaki was brought to Konoha by an escort of twenty Uzushio warriors. However, upon her and her honour guard departing the village, it was besieged. Uzushio sent a carrier bird to request emergency aid for Konoha, and naturally, Konoha responded to the call of its fiercest ally. A batallion of two hundred shinobi made up Konoha chūnin and Jōnin met the escort at the coastline, whereby they informed the guards of the events in their hometowns, and volunteered to investigate and assist whilst the Uzushio shinobi completed their escort mission. Naturally, the Uzushio shinobi refused and it was decided that a small squad of five Konoha chūnin would accompany Kushina to Konoha, whilst the remainder of the group would proceed to assist Uzushio repel their invaders.

"However, upon arrival, Uzushio had already been completely destroyed."

Kakashi found himself unable to draw his eye away from his most enraptured student, watching as the tears silently fell from his face.

"It appeared that an enemy force that outnumbered the Uzushio shinobi at least ten-to-one had ambushed the village, and though the village fought back valiantly, there was very little they could do. The ground where the Konoha and Uzushio teams alighted was pockmarked with the evidence of devastating ninjutsu of all elements. As they neared the centre of the village, it became more and more of an intense battle ground, or at least the remains of one. Once they reached the centre of the village, they found where the Uzumaki had gathered for a last stand, but none remained.

"The Uzumaki that accompanied the Konoha shinobi buried their dead as a last act of respect, before leaving to wander the Elemental Nations. Of course, they were offered sanctuary and refuge in Konoha, and a place to rebuild their clan in safety, but they declined. That task was left to Kushina, and they left to go their own way. Unfortunately, Kushina Uzumaki was killed twelve years ago in the Kyūbi attack, and with her died what was left of the great Uzumaki clan."

There was a clatter as Naruto's chair crashed against the floor, but the boy was already gone when the class turned to look, as were Kakashi and Gai.

"Alright, take an early day today class, tomorrow we'll deal with fūinjutsu, among other things." Kurenai dismissed the class before she and Asuma shunshinned away, leaving a class in stunned silence.

* * *

"That Uzumaki clan sounded pretty awesome!" Kiba declared. He and the rest of the rookies were sat gathered around the large, round table discussing the day's revelations. The room had been given to them by the academy, they'd referred to it as the "Rookie Common Room" since. It had been essential in discussing the training of the day, any ideas of the academy so far, and most recently, Naruto and all the odd things going on with him. The only people that didn't turn up to the gatherings after class were Naruto and Lee, both because they preferred to spend the afternoons training than reflecting. This was actually quite helpful to the rest of the class, as it meant that both the subject of their discussions and said subject's training partner were always out of the room for these discussions.

"Yosh! It does appear that Naruto-kun's family were quite formidable shinobi! It is a shame we will never have the opportunity to test our flames against the powerful fury of their youth!" Lee _was_ never present, apart from this one time of course. Without his usual training partners in Gai and Naruto, the group convinced him to come along and discuss the Uzumaki clan and Naruto in general. Unfortunately, they had never held a lengthy conversation with Lee. The boy spoke so _strangely_. No contractions, and intermittent mentions of youth and passion.

"So you really think Naruto is a member of this clan then Lee?" Sakura asked.

Before Lee could rant on about who knows what, Shikamaru interrupted. "It looks to be pretty clear. He has the right chakra amounts and he has the physical endurance; that's two of the things that the Uzumaki were famous for he has in great amounts."

"Indeed. And it is logical that he may be a member of that clan. Why? Because, while other orphans are occasionally given fictitious surnames, a clan name would never been given out to one outside of the clan, whether the clan was alive or dead. Also, that Naruto has the surname but is alone is congruent with the fact that the clan has been wiped out." Shino's monotonous voice continued from where Shikamaru left off. "In addition, the reactions of the senseis to this information and Naruto's reaction to it leads me to believe that they have always known of his heritage."

At this, Ino spoke up. "But, if they knew that Naruto had all of this history, why would they leave Naruto to think he had no family? There must have been opportunities for this to come up: I know that if I didn't know anything about my family, I'd kill for that information!"

Tenten smiled ruefully. "It's not like that Ino. You've got a family, it's different for you. For Naruto, he's never had a family, but it's every orphan's dream to one day have one. He's not upset that people have kept this information from him, he's upset because this information is confirmation of what we-_he's_ always feared. He did have a family, but they're all gone now. There's never going to be anyone to discover or find, he will always be alone, at least until he can make a family of his own."

Sakura frowned sadly at this. "That's...horrible."

The silence from the rest of the group seemed to be a wordless agreement with Sakura.

"I still don't get it." Chōji commented, munching away on his barbecue chips. "If Naruto is a member of a clan, and one that prestigious to boot, why is he treated that way?"

Shikamaru shot a sharp look at Chōji, but the boy had once again buried his face in his pack of chips.

"What way?" Kiba answered, confused by the question.

"P-people don't like him" Hinata's meek voice piped up. "When he g-goes out after s-school, people avoid him."

"Well, maybe they just don't know about his clan!" Kiba barked. "If they did, I bet they'd show him a lot more respect."

"I find that unlikely. That is because the symbol Kakashi drew on the board when announcing the Uzumaki clan was undoubtedly their clan symbol, or the symbol of their village. That same symbol can be found on every flak jacket which a chūnin level or above shinobi is given as attire. It is improbable that a clan which warrants such honour would be so quickly forgotten." Shino shot down Kiba's suggestion with that unerring vocal accuracy that seemed inherent to all Aburames.

"So they know of his heritage, but still treat him poorly. There must be something else that bothers them about him, maybe it's his history with pranks and bad behaviour. He has been a nuisance until this last year of the academy, and even then he attempted to prank Kakashi." Sakura paused and thought about this for a moment. "Odd. He only tried the once, then he didn't bother anymore. That was around the time he began really trying in class as well." Sakura looked around the group, noticing that they'd all been listening to her rambling, out-loud thoughts. Blushing, she withdrew slightly in her chair and waved them off.

"I hardly think that a couple of pranks are worth the looks that he gets, or the treatment he gets. He's troublesome at times, but he doesn't cause any harm" Shikamaru mused. "What do you think Sasuke?"

All eyes turned to the most reticent and quiet member of the group, and considering that group included Shino, that was not a statement to be taken lightly.

"He has the chakra for it, it would explain how someone like him could have such massive chakra stores. I think it's highly likely he is a member of the clan." Sasuke intoned, voicing his opinion as if passing some great judgement.

"Not just a member" Shikamaru pointed out. "Naruto is most likely the heir to the clan, considering that he's the only member left who isn't a roaming shinobi. If the Uzumaki clan were to be re-established in Konoha, as per Konoha's offer at the destruction of Uzushio, then Naruto would be the clan head."

"More than that though. Do you remember Kakashi telling us that Kushina died in the Kyūbi attack? That would explain why Naruto was alone, if she was the last Uzumaki in Konoha. More than that though, if she was the last Uzumaki in Konoha, and now he is, she must be his _mother_!" Sakura realised out loud, surprising all but a few of the group.

"You're right about that" Shikamaru agreed. "I wonder if Naruto figured that out?"

* * *

"She was my mother, wasn't she?" Naruto sniffed, rubbing his red, raw eyes.

After fleeing from the classroom, Naruto had been chased down by his silver-haired sensei. He attempted to turn away, but Kakashi's grip was iron. Before he could react, he felt a strange pulling sensation in his chakra, which ended with his sudden arrival in the Hokage's office. Waiting for him was the Sandaime Hokage himself, along with his other three senseis.

"Yes Naruto-kun, Kushina Uzumaki was your mother." The Hokage replied gently, watching his surrogate grandson closely. Deciding against pressing forwards, Sarutobi kept quiet, waiting for the blonde boy in front of him to make the first move.

"What...what happened to her?" Naruto asked hesitantly, not entirely convinced he wanted to hear the answer, whatever it may be.

"She was killed in the Kyūbi attack along with so many others, including your father." The Hokage held up a hand wearily as Naruto's head shot up, his mouth already forming the question that Hiruzen had been desperately hoping he would not ask. "I cannot tell you who your father was, for your own protection. Kushina was a powerful kunoichi in her own right: her ninjutsu and fūinjutsu were quite famous in her time, but your father's name being passed to you would bring far, far more attention than you or the village could handle at the moment."

He gazed sadly at the usually exuberant boy in front of him, now so oddly quiet. "I truly wish it were not the case, but until I am assured you are powerful enough to defend yourself from most threats, your father's identity must remain a secret. I will however, tell you anything you wish to know about your mother."

Naruto nodded slowly, trusting the wizened old shinobi in front of him to be telling him the truth. That trust however, had been strained by recent revelations. He considered asking why the information had been held back from him about his mother in the first place, but compared to being able to finally get some of the answers he'd longed for for so long, it was a simple decision.

"What did...kaa-chan...look like?" Kaa-chan. Naruto rolled the phrase around in his head. Kushina Uzumaki, kaa-chan. It just seemed to fit.

"Actually, I have a photo of her right here, I thought you might like to see it." The Hokage smiled at Naruto as he passed the image over the desk. "This photograph was taken on the day she was promoted to Jōnin. The celebration she held… I think half of my ninja were laid up the next day. Kushina had a real knack of getting people to come together, she was incredibly well-liked around the village."

Sarutobi leaned forward and beckoned Naruto to do the same, cupping a hand around his mouth as though imparting a great secret. "However, she was teased at school because of her hair and her face resembling a tomato, which she was then nicknamed for. Of course, being the fiery Uzumaki that she was, she promptly beat anyone who teased her half-to-death. Her nickname was changed to the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero."

Naruto snorted as he leant back from the Old Man, gazing happily back at the photo of his mother. So enraptured with her image, he missed the meaningful glances between the Hokage and his senseis behind him.

"Naruto" Hiruzen recaptured Naruto's attention, thoroughly hoping that the next revelation would be taken as well as the first. "There is another piece of history you should be aware of, a family birthright if you will."

The Hokage took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for what was to come far too soon.

"There are nine beings that exist across the world, known as the bijū. These creatures are constructs of chakra, incredible amounts of chakra condensed into a physical form, able to perform feats of power far beyond any ordinary, and indeed the majority of extraordinary ninja." Hiruzen looked Naruto dead in the eye, assuring himself that the boy was paying attention to this most important lecture.

"You would have heard of one of these beasts: the Kyūbi." Seeing Naruto nod, he continued. "The Kyūbi is just one of the nine, albeit the most powerful. In fact, the Kyūbi's might was so fearsome, it was compared to a walking natural disaster, leaving nothing but devastation in its wake.

"fūinjutsu, the art of sealing, is a far more dangerous, powerful and complex art than most people ever realise. It is more than just objects and explosions that can be sealed, the most common thing to be sealed is chakra itself. In creating an exploding tag, or a resistance seal, chakra has to be stored in an object, to be retrieved or activated at a later date. Are you following?"

Naruto nodded, wondering where the Hokage was going with this. "I understand. So basically, fūinjutsu is just storing chakra to be used for different purposes and in different ways."

The Hokage smiled proudly, happy to know that it was more than just the vitality that the Uzumaki had handed down to Naruto. "Exactly. Now, if chakra can be sealed, what are the limits? What else can be sealed? What about a living creature, entirely composed of chakra?"

His rhetorical question echoed around the room, his four Jōnin knowing better than to speak when the Professor was discussing the shinobi arts, and the young blonde in front of him to busy thinking about the implications to even remember they were there.

"The bijū, or tailed beasts, can in fact be sealed, though the difficulty in sealing them is directly proportionate to their power. The Ichibi for example was sealed in a tea-urn for many years, though the Hachibi cannot be kept sealed in any object for long, even one created by the Sage of the Six Paths himself. The Kyūbi's power cannot be accurately compared to any of the others; it is far beyond even the Hachibi's might. No physical object could hold such raw power. In fact, the only vessel powerful and malleable enough to contain the Kyūbi no Kitsune is a human body."

A horrible feeling of dread began to descend upon Naruto. "Old Man…"

"Please, let me finish Naruto" the aged shinobi almost begged, looking even older than his considerable years. "I have kept this information hidden from you for far too long: I would have you know the full extent of it now, before anyone could tell you and before you could get any of the wrong ideas."

Waiting for Naruto's acknowledgement, the Hokage persevered. "The Kyūbi has had three hosts since the founding of Konoha. The first Uzumaki to come to Konoha and the wife of the First Hokage, Mito Uzumaki. When Mito-sama was old and close to death, she called for the best candidate from Uzushio to become the next host of the Kyūbi."

"Why from Uzushio? Why couldn't a Konoha shinobi become the host?" Naruto asked.

"It was believed, and still is, that to be able to withstand the incredible effects a potent chakra like the Kyūbi's, the host must have their own incredibly strong life force and chakra. Traits which no clan in the world could claim to be even half as potent as those found in the Uzumaki. Even more so for your mother, the second host of the Kyūbi. Kushina's chakra was extraordinarily strong, even considering Uzumaki standards. Thanks to this, she was able to hold the Kyūbi perfectly at bay up until that fateful night.

"Then, on October 10th, something happened. It has never been clear exactly what, but during childbirth with you, Kushina's seal ruptured, allowing the Kyūbi to rampage unchecked across Konoha. Tragically, it is almost always fatal for a bijū to be released from its host, the only record of anyone surviving more than an hour after the procedure was Mito-sama, and that was only because she was a seal-master beyond all others, and had designed her seal herself. This meant she knew the innermost workings of the seal, and was able to release it and transfer the Kyūbi with minimal harm to herself."

Naruto's wide eyes were glistening with unshed tears, mourning for the mother he never had. Steeling himself once more, the Hokage pushed on. "This brings us to the crux of the matter, which no doubt you've already gathered."

Gathering himself one last time, which was progressing getting more and more difficult as he met the tortured gaze of one of his favourite young charges. "The only Uzumaki present at the time of the Kyūbi attack, and thus the only person that was physically compatible with being the host of the nine-tailed fox, was you."

* * *

"Today, we're going to be studying some rudimentary fūinjutsu" Kurenai began, as she always did, with an introduction to the upcoming topic. In many ways, it was helpful to have such an eclectic group of teachers. For academic subjects such as fūinjutsu, Gai's teaching method (force people to run around reciting the lesson, only being allowed to stop once it was word-for-word perfect) would probably result in several fatalities. Kurenai's much calmer approach helped preserve what little of their sanity was remaining.

Panning her eyes around the room, Kurenai allowed her gaze to linger on the blonde boy at the front of the class. After the discussion last night, Naruto had become very withdrawn, hardly speaking to the Hokage or his senseis except to ask the odd question. One question that had clearly been preying on his mind was the fact that this information had remained a secret for so long. It was understandable that he would be angry at having the reason for his mistreatment around the village hidden from all but him, but oddly, Naruto didn't seem angry. He seemed...even sadder somehow.

"fūinjutsu is, at its most basic, the art of sealing something into something else. Occasionally it is objects, most often, it is chakra in various forms." Kurenai forced herself to stop thinking about the events of yesterday evening, and focus back on her students. "Exploding tags are simply a small trigger burst of chakra used to prime fire-natured chakra, which then combusts the area around it. Likewise, resistance seals expel chakra into a current of air around themselves or the object they're drawn on to, creating a much heavier drag effect. The most complicated of seals can even seal living beings, whether they be humans or something more powerful like a bijū."

There, the key word that she needed to drop. All it would take now was…

"What's a bijū?" Ino asked, slightly confused by the name. A tailed beast?

"A bijū is a being made entirely of chakra. There are nine dotted around the world, their relative power demonstrated by the number of their tails. You have actually already heard of one, though I suppose you've never heard it referred to as a bijū before" Kurenai explained.

There was a pause as the class considered this, before Sakura's voice cut across the class. "Kurenai-sensei… are you talking about the Kyūbi?"

Comprehension and apprehension dawned in equal amounts on the faces of the class. Though they were too young to remember the attack themselves, many of them having not even been born for its occurrence, they were all too familiar with the aftermath. Even now, the attack was spoken about in hushed tones; the only day that people relaxed about the attack was the 10th of October, the day where everyone came together to celebrate the Yondaime's victory over the Kyūbi and mourn those that they'd lost.

"Yes Sakura, I mean the Kyūbi" Kurenai confirmed, silently praising the girl for being so predictably quick off the mark. "The Kyūbi is only one of nine such creatures, albeit being by far the most powerful. But we're getting sidetracked, we were talking about sealing, not the bijū."

"How could anyone seal something that powerful?" Tenten asked, slightly in awe of the idea that one of her favourite ninja arts could achieve something so ludicrously difficult.

Kurenai sighed externally, but internally patted herself for a job well done. These kids might have shown promise, but they were still so easy to herd.

"A bijū is a collected entity of pure chakra. As such, it technically cannot be killed. It can only be sealed away, or temporarily dispersed, though sealing is preferable, as there are several accounts of bijū being dispersed and then simply re-assembling in the same area several years later." Kurenai smiled as she waited for the next set of questions, not even bothering to try to get the class back on track.

"If that's true, then why did Yondaime-sama kill the Kyūbi, instead of sealing it?" Chōji asked, wondering why a hero who was so legendarily powerful chose to take the easy way out.

"Well, he actually didn't" Kakashi answered simply, stepping forward to stand with Kurenai at the front of the class. "Though the information that was widely available to the public and internationally was that the Kyūbi was killed, it is impossible to do so."

Shikamaru's brow furrowed as he considered this information. Kakashi almost laughed out loud, seeing an almost frightening resemblance between the lazy boy and his lazy father.

"Why would people be told that?" Ino asked, slightly affronted by the misinformation. In her world, that is, the world of gossip, misinformation was deadly to your professional credibility. If she'd bandied about information that was incorrect to that degree, she'd be finished!

"Mainly, for the safety of the village" Kakashi responded simply. "The Kyūbi attack caused crippling damage both to our infrastructure and to our shinobi forces, leaving us severely weakened. If the other countries knew that we had in our possession the mightiest bijū, and that we were no longer in the best condition to defend it, it would have attracted a lot more attention from outside influences than konoha was in a state to handle. The information was released externally through Lord Jiraiya's spy network in order to deter any potential attacks."

"Why would false information be accessible internally?" Shikamaru mused. "It makes sense to deceive your allies, but we've been raised with incorrect information." It was uncommonly known, but Shikamaru probably hated false information more than anyone else in the room. His father often spoke to him about his duties as Jōnin commander, duties he had made it abundantly clear he wished his son to follow him in, and he knew that misinformation could destroy a mission's chances faster than almost any other eventuality. That such falsehoods would be knowingly spread within the village walls set a chorus of alarm bells ringing inside his mind.

"That was actually for a different reason" Kakashi explained, cautiously approaching the most sensitive matter. Naruto's head raised imperceptibly as he detected the shift in Kakashi's voice.

"When the Yondaime sacrificed his life to seal the Kyūbi, his dying wish was that the vessel be respected. As Tenten can no doubt confirm, budding fūinjutsu mistress that she is, the more powerful the chakra being sealed is, the more powerful the medium that is required." Kakashi looked to Tenten for confirmation, as did the rest of the class.

"That's right: depending on the amount of chakra, more and more powerful sealing items must be used. For low level seals like an exploding tag, just a small piece of paper is sufficient. For something larger like a summoning seal, a full scroll of chakra-imbued paper is most commonly used" Tenten hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. "For sealing something as powerful as a bijū… I don't know what would be needed."

Kakashi eye-smiled at Tenten, quietly proud of how much work she'd done in her spare time to pursue such an obscure art; she really was an excellent student. "Regardless-"

Kakashi was interrupted by Naruto raising his head and clearing his throat. "A human" he announced, drawing the attention of the entire class onto himself, even making a few of them jump. The boy had barely said a word today, hardly even acknowledging their congratulations on his birthday. "It requires a human vessel to be used."

The class sat in stunned silence, considering the enormity of this statement. "Kakashi-sensei… is that true?" Kiba asked.

Kakashi paused, a solemn look in his one visible eye. "It is. No object could hope to hold the Kyūbi for longer than a few moments, in fact, it's rare for any bijū to be contained in anything other than a person. With the internal strength people possess, their willpower to defend the people they are keeping the beast from, and naturally powerful chakra coil for the bijū's chakra to be restrained by, nothing but a human container, called a jinchūriki, is sufficient."

Sensing no other questions were forthcoming as his students digested this quite shocking piece of information, Kakashi pushed on. "The Yondaime's dying wish was for the jinchūriki to be respected, and honoured for the great service they had made to this village in giving up so much in order to keep the village safe from the Kyūbi. However, it was not to be. The jinchūriki was neglected, berated, kept at arms length by all but a handful of the villagers and generally made to feel as though their very presence was a blemish on the village's image. If not for the jinchūriki's incredible will and determination, I have no doubt that the village would have faced the wrath of the Kyūbi no Kitsune once more."

The class frowned at this. It was considered incredibly dishonourable to ignore anyone's dying wish, especially someone as well-respected as the Fourth Hokage. Considering that he had just sacrificed his life for the sake of the village, to ignore his last request was almost inconceivable.

"After seeing how the jinchūriki was treated, even as a baby" - at this, the eyes of almost each and every member of the class widened in surprise - "the Sandaime Hokage was forced to put into place an S-rank secret. It was decreed that no-one should speak about the sealing, especially the sealing into a person or who that person was, on pain of death. The hope was that the Sandaime could ensure that the Yondaime's wish was honoured by the following generation by ensuring the very idea of a jinchūriki was never presented to them." Kakashi continued, holding up a hand to forestall any questions before he finished.

"Though in the end, he was unsuccessful, as the older generations simply passed on their hatred and ill-will whilst avoiding the whole topic. By telling their children to avoid or shun the jinchūriki, they ensured that his treatment by their children was as bad as their own treatment of him." Kakashi panned his eye around the room, meeting many of their gazes, be they confused, upset or, in one case, resigned. "It truly is a black-mark on the history of this village, that a baby could be blamed for such a horrendous incident, especially considering that the jinchūriki has been holding back the Kyūbi for twelve years already. In fact" Kakashi glanced at the sun outside, as if checking the time, "for twelve years today."

This statement made many brows crease in thought before, one by one, heads swiveled to look at Naruto in shock.

"A bijū cannot be sealed in any human, least of all the nine-tails. To hold the Kyūbi effectively, only an Uzumaki can be used for the seal, as only their chakra is potent enough to suppress the Kyūbi's. Add to that that it is incredibly difficult to seal any bijū, least of all one that is not already sealed or restrained somehow, so the jinchūriki needed to be the absolute most powerful it could be to hold it at bay.

"The reason a baby was used was that the chakra coils were undeveloped. By using a baby, there is far more time for the coils to grow and to become accustomed to the corrosive chakra of a bijū, and so an Uzumaki baby was used. The only Uzumaki baby in fact."

Kakashi gazed sadly at his blonde student, noting with some satisfaction that many of his classmates were doing the same. "As of last night, the S-rank secret concerning this issue has been repealed."

At this cue, Naruto looked up and gazed straight into his sensei's eye. "The jinchūriki of the Kyūbi no Kitsune is _me_."

* * *

**Well hello again! Well done for getting to the end of that, don't think I've ever written so much dialogue in one place, but the chapter called for it. Gotten the revelations out of the way, now just to deal with a teensy-weensy bit of reaction in the next chapter and the story can proceed!**

**As for my manga rant… I don't have one. There hasn't been a chapter since my last update see, so I'll just bemoan that. PLEASE DRAW FASTER KISHIMOTO.**

**Please leave a review, let me know what you liked, what you think could be improved, it's always nice and helpful to hear. Thanks for reading!**

**Toodle-pip.**


	8. Act 1 - Chapter 5 - Progress

**A/N: Hello all! Sorry about the delay, things piled up! Never mind, enjoy!**

* * *

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.**

**Act 1 – Chapter 5 – Progress**

Naruto grunted as he landed flat on his back for the fifth time in as many minutes. "Kuso!" he muttered, clambering back to his feet.

His classmates around him gave a slight chuckle at his predicament. Naruto was, once again, finally, trying to climb a tree with the rest of them. His progress was better than before, but still not great, and he just couldn't figure out why!

"A-Ano, Naruto-kun" Hinata mumbled shyly, her face quickly turning an impressive shade of scarlet as Naruto turned his attention to her. "I-if you'd like, I c-could watch your chakra t-to see where it's going wrong."

She turned away, predicting the expected rejection, but was shocked to hear Naruto's hurried acceptance.

"That sounds great, Hinata!" Naruto beamed. "I just can't seem to get this down."

Nodding, not trusting her voice to not betray her, Hinata motioned for him to prepare to try again. As he did so, she performed the necessary hand-signs; necessary only for her, she noted sadly. Neji-nii-san was already at the point where he could activate it without any hand-signs. Mentally reprimanding herself for getting distracted, she had to suppress an 'eep' when she saw Naruto waiting for her to do something.

"Byakugan!" she announced, the clearly defined veins popping around her eyes signalling her family's dōjutsu was now active.

Turning her full attention to Naruto, she gasped audibly. He had _so _much chakra. That was even more chakra than their senseis! She'd seen him before with the byakugan, but _never _from as close as she was now. As Naruto bounded towards the tree, she watched him focus more chakra into his feet than she was able to channel full stop, and subsequently be thrown forcefully away from the tree after only a few steps.

"You're still using way too much chakra Naruto" Kakashi said simply, laying a hand on Naruto's shoulder. Hinata mouth snapped shut, her opportunity to give those exact words of advice robbed from her by her now least-favourite sensei.

"But I'm using as little as possible Kakashi-sensei. It feels like I'm barely channeling any at all at this point!" Naruto whined childishly.

Rolling her eyes at Naruto's immaturity, Sakura spoke up. "Kakashi-sensei, I thought you had a sensei meeting inside, is it finished already?"

Kakashi eye-smiled in response. "Not quite, I'm still in the meeting. This me is a clone"

Silence greeted his words, before Tenten asked the question that everyone was waiting for someone to ask, but was desperate not to ask themselves.

"I thought clones were immaterial? You just touched Naruto, how could that be?"

Kakashi placed a hand under his chin, wondering how best to explain it, or, considering that it was technically a kinjutsu, whether he should at all.

"You've split your chakra in half" Neji stated, staring at Kakashi with his byakugan active. "You have half of Kakashi-sensei's chakra, and the other half is still sat in the meeting along with the other senseis."

Kakashi sighed. Well, Tora's out of the bag now.

"This technique is called Kage Bunshin, or Shadow Clones. It is clone created purely out of the user's chakra, making it both incredibly chakra intensive and very versatile. As you have noticed, shadow clones are physical constructs, but it goes beyond that. Each shadow clone has its own internal chakra system, much the same as all of you do. This means that the clone has all the abilities of the original, whether it be ninjutsu, taijutsu or genjutsu, just to a slightly lesser degree, due to the chakra being only a portion of the original."

Seeing several of his students eyeing up this technique interestedly, Kakashi hurried on with his explanation. "This technique is a kinjutsu due to the chakra being split. For the human body to function, a minimum amount of chakra is required. If you go below this amount, you will come down with chakra exhaustion. Go too far below this mark, you'll die. This technique was deemed a kinjutsu because of the ease with which someone could kill themselves with it. For example, I can make probably about twenty clones before I begin to seriously feel the strain. If Sakura were to try to make one, she would probably die from the strain."

Silence greeted this ominous statement as the students considered the risks and benefits of this new technique.

"What about Naruto?" Chōji asked, leaning on his bo staff lazily. "He has plenty of chakra to spare, and you said he's using too much. If he uses a shadow clone, it will halve the chakra he's got, right?"

Kakashi looked thoughtful for a second before replying. "That's true, it would most likely be a quick way to speed along his training in tree-walking, then we can get everyone started on water-walking instead."

Looking around at his students, he made an executive decision. "Alright. I am going to teach Naruto, Sasuke and Chōji the shadow clone technique, as they are the only ones with sufficient chakra to safely use it at the moment. Once the rest of you get to a point where I believe you could use it without danger to yourself, I will teach it to you as well. It is a Konoha technique, and one of our best, so it makes sense that Konoha's brightest generation in years should learn it."

'Yeah, that works' Kakashi thought to himself. 'Though I have just offered to teach academy students a dangerous kinjutsu...Hokage-sama is going to kill me."

* * *

"You did _what_?!" Sarutobi bellowed, his eyes wide with a mixture of surprise and anger. "Have you lost what little of your mind was left?! I give you a talented generation and you do whatever you can to _kill_ them! I swear-"

Kakashi shrunk further and further in on himself as his leader continued to berate him. Casting a pleading eye over to his fellow senseis, he was met with a trio of hard looks.

"-left you in ANBU where you do the damage I _want_ you to do!" The Hokage drew a deep breath after chewing Kakashi out. He rubbed his forehead in frustration. Why did it always have to be so complicated?

"Hokage-sama, in Kakashi's defence, Chōji was actually the person that raised the issue of Naruto balancing out his lack of chakra control by using the Kage Bunshin to reduce the amount he's dealing with" Asuma placated his father.

Hiruzen sighed again, gazing frankly at his subordinates. Inwardly however, his mood was slowly lifting as he thought this through. This would allow Naruto to grow rapidly which was always a plus, both for himself and the village as a whole, and it was also quite a heartening show of solidarity from some of his top jōnin, something he was always very keen to encourage.

"Well Kakashi, are there any other surprise learning plans you have for me?" the Sandaime queried sarcastically. "Maybe you would like to see their elemental affinities and teach any lightning-style users the Chidori?"

Kakashi looked horrified at the thought. "Hokage-sama, that's purely an assassination technique, I would _never_ teach it to genin!"

Steepling his hands in front of him, the Hokage gazed thoughtfully over them at his newest teachers. Really, they had done a remarkable job, especially Gai. The students were already looking physically fit enough to be genin, well, most of them. There were one or two that had lasting damage done to their physique by previous bad habits, but it was rapidly being undone thanks to Gai's torturous training regimen.

"Alright, I'm going to trust your judgement on this one" Hiruzen announced. He offered the jōnin in front of him a reassuring smile. "You've done well with your students thus far, I can allow you some leeway on this. But please, _please_, no more kinjutsu?"

"Hai Hokage-sama" the four jōnin droned together, grateful to be able to get off with a slap on the wrist. It was Kakashi's insane idea but frankly, they were all in this together; they weren't about to throw him under the bus now.

The Sandaime waved them away, and turned to face his window as they departed his office. He gazed out over the village, seeing the bustling to and fro, the ninja co-existing quite happily with their fellows and the civilians they would lay down their lives to protect, and smiled contentedly. It may not be the worldwide peace that his wandering student so fervently pursued, but he would die happy if the Village Hidden in the Leaves could remain this peaceful forever.

"Baka!" Kurenai scolded Kakashi with a smack to the back of the head. "Did you not even think to consult us before you attempted murder on three pre-pubescent genin?!"

To her even greater fury, Kakashi didn't even have the decency to look sheepish. Granted, it was next to impossible to convey emotions when ninety percent of his face was permanently covered, but he managed mocking and arrogant just fine, he could at least _attempt_ contrite, even if they all knew he didn't mean it!

"If it helps them, then it was worth it. Besides, you saw Naruto with that technique. I've never seen anyone pick it up that quickly, even _sensei_ took a few days to get it down, Naruto was able to make a solid clone after only a few hours! The technique looks like it was practically made for him, which, considering his chakra capacity, does make sense. But _still_, he did incredibly well with it. To me, that's more than worth a scolding from Hokage-sama." Kakashi reasoned reasonably.

"Besides" he continued, interrupting Kurenai's attempt to continue telling him off. "Do you really think that I would teach it to the students based only on chakra capacity? Please, a little credit here."

He gazed around at his fellow teachers, only to find their impassive gazes looking back at him. "No?" Sighing deeply, he continued. "I gave it to Naruto because with his chakra capacity, it would be almost impossible for him to harm himself with it, it would take something like the Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu to exhaust even a portion of his reserves. Once he got the single clone down successfully, it was clearly not even a noticeable drain on his levels. I gave it to Chōji because he's already been trusted with dangerous power; I know for a fact he is quite advanced in his clans techniques, and that his father has _at least _mentioned the Akimichi Food Pills to him. If he hasn't gone down that route, I doubt he's going to overuse a technique that is actually _less _dangerous. And I gave it to Sasuke because the boy is one of the most driven people I have ever met, albeit driven towards an unpleasant goal. He wouldn't let something little like chakra exhaustion kill him. In fact, he was the first to stop practicing with the technique. He may be arrogant, he may be talented, he may be determined, but he knows his limits, which is a blessing for us all."

Asuma and Kurenai considered Kakashi's words carefully, rolling them around their mouths as though to trust their authenticity. Kakashi was well known for talking himself out of almost any situation, and _Kami damn it_ this looked no different!

Gai's response was more...Gai.

"YOSH!" Gai exploded, throwing a thumb in a wide arc to eventually rest pointing towards his blinding smile. "Kakashi my hip rival, you had me at hello!"

Silence greeted his outburst, as it usually did.

"Gai…" Kakashi replied slowly, in a manner not unlike someone tiptoeing around a sleeping armadillo. "I didn't say hello…"

* * *

"So…" Kiba began falteringly, hesitating before coming to a complete stop. Honestly, what could someone say in this situation?!

Sat around the table in the Rookie Common Room was every rookie, including those not normally found there. The chairs had been somewhat rearranged to accommodate the newcomer, who, with a somewhat nervous look on his face and a somewhat squirmy demeanour, was seated directly between Lee and Shikamaru.

Naruto laughed uncomfortably as he rubbed the back of his head. "Guys, I really-"

He was cut off by Sakura's outburst.

"Are you the Kyūbi?" she asked bluntly.

Naruto recoiled visibly, as though struck. Seeing this response, Shikamaru fixed Sakura with a very pointed Look. In fact, this was closer to a visual Kunai than a normal gaze.

"Does he look like a gigantic destructive demon fox with nine tails Sakura?" he snapped sharply. "Think about it before you speak."

Sakura angrily glared back at Shikamaru, refusing to back down. "Of course he doesn't, I didn't say he did! But I, unlike you, listen to gossip amongst the villagers. I don't live in a clan compound, I live in the centre of the civilian district, so what they say, I hear. And I've heard people speaking about Naruto more than once as a demon, or as the 'fox brat'. I never understood the fox brat, but I assumed it was something to do with the whisker marks on his cheeks." At this she looked guiltily over at Naruto.

"I never thought that they could be talking about anything...else. I guessed that they just didn't like you because the civilian district used to be your main...'hunting grounds' - I understand why they chose that phrase too now, _wow _\- when you were doing your pranking rounds. I guess I should have looked under the underneath there." Sakura seemed to pause for a minute, considering her next words carefully.

"Sorry Naruto" she stated simply.

During her speech, Naruto had been gazing at her with a look that ranged from clearly worried at the beginning to obviously relieved at the conclusion. Looking between her and Shikamaru, he realised something. Sakura had just apologised to him for the way she had treated him, or at least for not realising a connection between the way everyone else treated him. And Shikamaru jumped to his defence! He _daren't_ hope.

"N-Naruto-kun… I think they're wrong a-about you. Y-you're not a demon, they just d-don't understand."

"Indeed. It would be quite illogical to consider yourself the Kyūbi. Why? Because why would the Kyūbi destroy half of the village and then, when supposedly reincarnated inside its walls, not continue the job."

Kiba slammed a hand down on the table, making Hinata, who was sat right next to him, almost leap out of her skin. "I knew there was something! Akamaru has _always _told me that you smell of foxes! Now I know why!"

With his declaration out of the way, Kiba rocked back in his chair looking smug. "So long as Akamaru trusts you, I've got no problem. Nobody, I mean _nobody_, fools Akamaru's nose. Isn't that right?" Kiba addressed the last part to the fluffy white puppy perched quite contentedly atop his head, who yapped happily in response.

Ino and Chōji simply shrugged at the whole idea. With a glance at one another, they knew they were in agreement. "If Shikamaru is good, we're good" Ino stated simply, seeing no reason to discuss it further. Though she'd admit to being a tad intimidated by the idea of the Kyūbi being locked away in one of her classmates, Naruto had always seemed harmless enough, if somewhat annoying. Chōji ate chips. Nuff said.

At this point, Naruto could feel himself welling up. He had hoped, despite his best attempts not to, that his friends wouldn't reject him for this. He finally had some real friends, people he knew he could count on, and people that he felt were finally coming to accept him as a person in his own right. To see that they truly did, and that he wasn't going to be ostracised like he was before, he struggled to keep his tears at bay.

"Hn" Sasuke uttered from the far end of the table. "I'd think that a country-destroying fox would have a lot more power than the dobe showed. Even if you were intent on doing harm, you wouldn't get past me." He glared over his clasped hands in front of him, resting his elbows on his table.

"In your dreams teme! You've just gotten lucky so far, I got you good in our last spar!" Naruto shouted back, outwardly enraged by Sasuke's arrogant dismissal of his skills. Inwardly, he grinned. _Nothing_ _had changed_.

"My eyes would have seen if you were a threat. I can see now the two chakras melding with one another, but when I wasn't looking for it, it went unnoticed. Your chakra appears to be suppressing it efficiently." Neji stated expressionlessly, if with a tinge of pride in his familial abilities and a slight hint of dismay at having missed it in the first place.

Tenten gazed at her peers around the table and sighed. "Why is it the only ones that are talkative are the logical ones?" She looked back at Naruto and gave him a simple smile. "I've never thought you were dangerous, and I'm not one to blame someone for something that happened to them."

"My youthful friend is right!" Lee said vigorously (Lee being only one of two people in existence to be able to say something _vigorously_). "It is not your fault that the Kyūbi has been sealed within you, you are the jailer, not the prisoner, and I will not treat you as such."

Naruto sat back in his chair, more than a little bit awed by the response he had received. Sure, he was hoping for one or two people to still be his friend, but everyone? His megawatt grin threatened to envelop his entire face as he stared back at his _friends_.

They may not realise it yet, but to Naruto, being friends was the most deadly serious thing there was. And now that he had them, _nothing_ would take them from him so long as there was breath in his body.

* * *

"Ready Naruto?" Asuma asked, nervously fiddling with his cigarette. This technique was a kinjutsu for a reason! To be encouraging, and helping, a student learn and perform the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu was treasonous, he just knew it.

Throwing his sensei a cocky grin, Naruto drew his hands into the _**[insert name]**_ sign and did his best to dredge up the amount of chakra he had used when he last performed the technique.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto uttered, focusing all of his efforts into creating a perfect replica of himself. A popping sound from his right told him he had succeeded. "Yatta!" he screamed, leaping high into the air.

Expecting to see his clone beside him, he was shocked to see himself with a clone either side. So shocked, he landed square on his backside with a resounding "oomph". Growling to himself, he lamented the fact that the technique taught to him to prevent him being in a situation like this just put him _in a situation like this_.

As his clones reached down to help him to his feet - so he helped himself to his feet, now that was a strange thought - he looked over questioningly to Asuma. "Sensei...why are there two of me? Or...three of me?"

Asuma sighed as he looked at the trio of curious-looking faces. Boy did things just get real complicated, real fast. The most dangerous secret of the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu found out by accident by an academy student. Only Naruto.

"The Kage Bunshin...is different to most ninjutsu. Increasing the chakra you put into the jutsu won't cause it to destabilise, merely increase the number of clones." Asuma hesitated here, unsure whether to explain any more. Well in for a kinjutsu, in for a ryō? "There is a certain level of chakra input which is then classed as the Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. It's not really a different technique, just the same technique on a far greater scale, but because of the much greater risks, it was classed as a kinjutsu in its own right."

Asuma frowned at the look of deep concentration on Naruto's face. "This technique is on a completely different scale to the single Kage Bunshin Naruto, even for someone with your reserves, this could be dangerous."

"Hai Asuma-sensei, I'll be careful" Naruto promised earnestly, happy that he was being entrusted with something that was clearly not common knowledge.

"That's alright then." Asuma closed the matter, bringing his mind back onto track. "How do you feel with those clones out Naruto?"

Naruto looked down at himself for a second, almost weighing himself up. "I feel fine. Honestly, I can't really feel the difference."

Asuma smiled triumphantly. "Perfect, then let's rejoin the group, and we'll see if this works."

"YATTA!" Naruto yelled victoriously, pumping a fist into the air.

"Baka!" Sakura scolded. "You fell again, why are you celebrating?"

Naruto simply grinned widely at her in response, pointing at the hole in the bark of the tree which had been blown open by one of the Narutos' attempt. The hole was a full metre above the last.

"YAT-AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH" Naruto screamed as he fell from the tree. From the top at least.

"This technique is the more advanced version of tree-walking. We have taught you to walk on solid surfaces, to the point that you can all remain attached to a solid surface for fifteen minutes whilst concentrating on something else. Now, you will be learning on an uneven surface." Kurenai explained, hiding her mirth deep inside. Considering the chakra control of a few of these students, this could end up being _very _funny indeed.

"For this exercise, you need to constantly redistribute the chakra you are outputting from the soles of your feet to compensate for the unsteadiness and the movement underneath you. If there is a dip where a small amount of your foot is higher above the water than the rest, then that part of your foot requires more chakra to adhere over that distance. If all of a sudden the water surges upwards, your output needs to decrease so that you can easily follow the ebb and flow, only to increase again once the water has regained its stability." Glancing over to Kakashi, she gestured for him to proceed.

"**Doton: Tsuchi Kairō**!" (_Earth-style: Earth Corridor_) Kakashi uttered, slamming both hands into the ground. Seconds later, the earth rumbled and four walls began to rise out of the ground, leaving a hollow basin in the centre. Calling out "**Suiton: Suijinheki**!", Kakashi spewed out copious amounts of water, until the basin he had created, about twice the size of his still-standing stone arena, was filled to the brim with water. Flashing a two-fingered salute to Kurenai, he returned his nose to its rightful place in his book and promptly blocked out the rest of the proceedings.

Shaking her head in a mixture of disbelief and absolute reassurance of her beliefs _in Kakashi_, Kurenai leapt gracefully to the top of the pool of water, balancing easily upon the surface. "This is what you will be learning. It is a more advanced technique but it is vital to learn as a ninja, not just for the obvious reasons, but because it is recognised as an excellent tool to improve one's chakra control. Who's first?"

Sakura, buoyed by her earlier successes with her control, shyly raised a hand to volunteer. With a reassuring smile, Kurenai beckoned her forwards, taking note of Kakashi's lazy look over towards them. As lackadaisical as the silver-haired Jōnin was, there were very few people alive that could boast to care quite so much about their comrades as he did. It was a lesson he had learned in the very hardest way, and one that he had clearly never forgotten.

Sakura walked over the edge of the wall, placing one foot gingerly atop the water. Concentrating for a moment, feeling the flow and ebb of her chakra, she began to place more and more weight upon her foot, feeling it give slightly before taking hold. Sighing in relief as she felt her classmates' gazes boring into her, she placed her second foot next to the first and focussed simply on staying above the water.

She started as she felt a hand upon her shoulder. "That's excellent Sakura!" Kurenai said warmly, quite visibly proud of her student. "To get the water-walking exercise on the first try is very rare."

She smiled at the other students and invited them to join her and Sakura. "All of you have a go now that's Sakura's shown you how to do it."

One by one, the remainder of the class began attempting the water-walking with varying degrees of success. Shikamaru, surprisingly, was getting the hang of the exercise quite quickly. Chōji… was having rather more trouble.

Of course, no-one was having as much trouble as the resident jinchūriki. Naruto was already soaked through, as were his three clones. Together, they had a corner of the makeshift pool to themselves, largely so that everyone else could avoid the ripples and splashes caused by them regularly, loudly and dramatically falling in.

"Kurenai-sensei" Ino asked, trying to switch her concentration between staying afloat and querying her teacher. She succeeded...mostly. "Why have - pppssshhbbbbttt - why have only two senseis been watching our lessons? For the past week or so, we haven't had all four of you together."

The class looked up, in Naruto's case from underwater, to hear Kurenai's answer.

Asuma's voice came from behind them, making all of them jump and at least half of them sink. "It's because we've been training too."

"Each lesson, two of us oversee your lesson and the other two go off to train together and spar together. Normally we'd be doing missions and the like to keep our skills sharp, but what with us being here every day, we had to find some other ways to stop ourselves getting rusty." Kurenai explained. "Today, it was Asuma and Gai's turn to go train."

Most of the class nodded at this, quite happy with the explanation. Apart from Kiba.

"Could we watch, sensei?!" Kiba questioned Kurenai excitedly.

Kurenai hesitated, torn between making her charges very happy with a simple spar and protecting them from the possibly dangerous backlash from their spar. Friendly or not, they were jōnin for a reason, and each of them was quite powerful in their own right. Any spar between them usually left the area they were in quite badly damaged, so she was ill at ease filling the target area with children.

"I'm not sure-" she began, before being cut off by Kakashi's lazy drawl.

"Sure" he answered coolly. "Who's turn to spar is it tomorrow?"

"YOSH!" Gai bellowed. "Kakashi, tomorrow you and I are destined to explode in a glorious display of our youth. We will pit our flames against one another, and may the best man win!"

A grin began to crawl its way across the students' faces. Kakashi vs Gai? This should be a very interesting fight. Considering they'd seen Kakashi's speed, or rather, _couldn't_ see his speed, when he demolished Naruto what felt like a year ago, and Gai was the apparent taijutsu master, a spar between the two of them promised to be very good indeed.

"Ne sensei, why not all four of you?" Naruto asked, his grin getting even wider as he thought about it. "Since there's not going to be a lesson at the same time, all four of you can train together in a tag-team duel, like you make us do sometimes when we spar!"

A collective 'ooohhh' erupted from the class, their faces lighting up as they imagined being able to see four powerful jōnin fight without having to hold back as they did against their students.

"Oh, oh, I know! Asuma and Kakashi vs Kurenai and Gai!" Ino called out, almost drooling at the thought of the two men on that team. Sure, Asuma-sensei was a little...beardy...but Kakashi-sensei was _hot_!

"No" Shikamaru answered. "That's two specialists vs two all-rounders, it would be a landslide either one way or the other, depending on who got the first attack in."

"Ok, so one all-rounder and one specialist on each team then." Sakura answered, wondering who should be paired with Kakashi and who should be paired with Asuma.

The senseis stood staring at their pupils, sweatdrops rapidly forming on the back of their heads. Maybe showing these kids a little bit of strength had been good for their determination, but it had given them almost an unhealthy appreciation for power, knowing now how hard (and it was _very_ hard (usually that is, stupid Uchihas)) to gain that level of strength.

They considered breaking the debate up one way or another before Lee's voice cut through the crowd. "So it's decided!" A chill descended on the back of three of the four senseis' necks. "Gai-sensei and Kakashi-sensei will do glorious battle with Asuma-sensei and Kurenai-sensei!" His announcement was met with a chorus of nods and verbal agreements from his peers.

"...uh, what?" Kakashi wondered aloud, wondering how that conclusion was reached, and how by Kami he had been paired with his apparent 'Eternal Rival'.

Glancing over to Kurenai and Asuma, he was surprised to see their shoulders slightly shaking. Quirking an eyebrow (the only one visible of course), he poked Asuma in the side.

"Gwahahahah!" Asuma burst out laughing, a hearty sound coming clean from his stomach. "Ok class, then we'll do this spar on Friday afternoon, ok? That way Kurenai and I have the weekend to recover."

A confused silence greeted his somewhat insane laugh and more than a little befuddling statement.

Kurenai sighed simply, somehow she knew it would come down to this. "Agreed. I'm not having to deal with you lot after that, I'd rather just sleep it off."

Kiba voiced the question arising above most of their heads. "Uhh, Kurenai-sensei? Why is Asuma-sensei laughing?"

Kurenai quirked an eyebrow (this time one of the _two_ that were visible) at her student. "Really? Have your parents not told you about key ninja in the village?" Passing a gaze over her students, she realised with a group of civilians borns in Lee, Tenten and Sakura, she needed to go over this anyway. No time like the present.

"Each village has certain key shinobi. These shinobi are usually high-A to S-rank and are always internationally known. Konoha has more than most, somehow always managing to churn out more A- and S-rank shinobi than any of the other villages. Currently, Konoha has three key shinobi inside the village, and five in total."

Listing them off on her fingers, she began counting back. "First, there is the Sandaime Hokage. Known as both the Professor and the Kami no Shinobi, he is proficient in all ninja arts, likely the world's best user of bojutsu and can use all five elements with almost effortless skill. He is one of the main reasons that Konoha emerged victorious in the Second Great Shinobi World War, being able to demolish entire platoons single-handedly, as I have shown you before." Waiting to see the dawning light of remembrance and comprehension in their eyes, she continued.

"Second, we have Jiraiya and Tsunade of the Densetsu no Sannin. They are both legendary in their own right. Tsunade is famous for her incredible strength and her healing prowess. In fact, she is recognised as one of the physically strongest people in the entire world, and she is universally accepted to be the greatest medic that has ever lived.

"Jiraiya is famous for his espionage techniques, being able to infiltrate locations with minimal effort and escape again. He is in charge of Konoha's entire spy network: without his work in the years following the Kyūbi attack whilst Konoha was weakened, it is very possible Konoha would have been invaded. In fact, there were a few small forays, but Jiraiya, through obtaining vital information about enemy troop movements and feeding them misinformation about our own platoons, ensured that each of their units was ambushed by at least three Konoha units, each of which was specifically assembled according to the skillsets that their opponents possessed. Information that was provided, once again, courtesy of Jiraiya. He is also Konoha's only Sage, and one of the few Sages alive in the world. Overall, despite Tsunade's clear advantage in Taijutsu, Jiraiya is considered to comfortably be Konoha's most powerful active shinobi."

Kurenai halted for a few seconds, making absolutely sure that she held the classes full attention before continuing.

"The last two shinobi are Kakashi and Gai" she gestured to each of the two shinobi in turn. "Each one of them is quite famous for their exploits, though Kakashi is more internationally famous."

Gai slumped as Kakashi eye-smiled and patted him on the back. Ignoring the pair's antics, Kurenai continued.

"Gai here is known as Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey-" she waited for the disbelieving snickers to die down "-a name he was allowed to choose in the bingo book. He is actually unique in that respect, as he is the only ninja in history to select their own bingo book nickname. Granted, he was only allowed to pick it because no-one could figure out how to describe him concisely. As you can see, he couldn't either." Gai's head was hung so low at this point Kakashi was actually attempting to prop him up to stop him keeling over.

"He is world-famous for his taijutsu. It is well held that in a straight taijutsu match, Gai is nigh unbeatable, possibly only Tsunade and the Fourth Raikage being able to defeat him, though both through the use of their nintaijutsu techniques. He is also thoroughly proficient with every kind of weapon and deceptively powerful with his ninjutsu, though he refuses to use them, often even in life-or-death situations."

Lee's eyes were sparkling with wonder as he stared at his favourite sensei, his idol. Gai-sensei became that powerful through taijutsu alone?! Then that means…

"Kakashi is known as the Copy Ninja or Sharingan no Kakashi, Kakashi of the Sharingan. He is famous for many things, but most of all his extreme proficiency in the use of the famed Uchiha bloodline. Even members of the Uchiha clan came to respect his ability to use their dōjutsu, albeit begrudgingly."

Sasuke eyes were glowing like fiery coals, desperately trying to burn through Kakashi's headband to see incontrovertible proof that Kurenai's words were the truth. Kurenai continued undeterred.

"He is known to have copied over a thousand techniques, allowing him to select from an unparallelled repertoire of ninjutsu in any situation. He is also rumoured to have never let an enemy escape after revealing the sharingan in battle. Though the last one is unconfirmed, it being very difficult to ascertain the truth of these matters." She glowered at Kakashi. "Most shinobi attempt to disguise their prowess, to encourage their opponents to underestimate them. It is one of the privileges of the elite few that are able to flaunt their power, knowing full well they could eliminate mostly any opposition they encountered."

"Maa, so mean Kurenai. Don't be a hater, ne?" Kakashi shrugged, a fluid motion that seemed to roll down his body. Unconsciously following it, his class snapped out as the motion hit the ground, only to find his nose back in the book.

"Kami be damned! Where does he keep pulling that book from?!" Ino whispered to Shikamaru. "Every time he pulls it out, he distracts us so we can't see where it's kept!"

Shikamaru sighed as he leaned in. Regardless of how troublesome, Ino was one of his oldest friends and was as hard to ignore as her fellow blonde. Or his mother. He shuddered, imagining the three of them in a room alone with him. Rattling his head to dislodge the evident nightmare-fuel, he answered the Yamanaka heiress.

"He didn't hide it before, but remember when Naruto tried to prank Kakashi?" he questioned.

Ino nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, he tried but Kakashi just picked him up and threw him out the window before doing that vanishing thing." She thought again. "Actually, that was the last prank Naruto tried to pull on anyone this year. He stopped from there on."

Shikamaru flicked her forehead. "Don't cause it to burn out now" he warned, taking the punch to the arm as appropriate punishment for his mocking. "But Naruto told me before he was going to try to steal Kakashi's book and see what was in it. Since he failed, Kakashi never lets anyone see where he pulls it from, just in case."

Ino sighed despondently. "I understand wanting to protect your stuff, especially from Naruto of all people, just think of what he'd do to it to get under Kakashi's skin. But still, it was a good idea. I really want to know what's in that book!"

"You're not old enough to know" came a whisper from behind her, sending her leaping forward with a shriek. Spinning around to face her sneaky adversary, she was irritated to find her chain-smoking sensei.

"And that's why you pay attention" Asuma stated smugly, turning back around to walk to the back of the group.

He promptly disappeared and reappeared behind Ino as she lunged for his legs. "And that's why you train harder." He chucked at he flicked her on the forehead, exactly where Shikamaru had, only her sensei's flick landed her on her rump on the floor.

The class was split into two groups, one laughing at Ino who was sputtering in anger and embarrassment, and the other watching the ever-escalating argument at the front.

"You _are _arrogant Kakashi!" Kurenai yelled. "Yes you're powerful, but you're not all-powerful and so you shouldn't act like it. I hate people who act like they're Kami's gift to women, but you act like you're Kami's gift to shinobi as a whole!"

Kakashi fixed Kurenai with a powerful stare, stopping her tirade in her tracks. "Are you done?"

Kurenai hesitated, having a lot more to say, but acutely aware of who it was she was saying it to. Sure, Kakashi didn't _technically_ have any authority over her, but he was a senior jōnin whereas she was new to the rank. He'd been ANBU for years, being a Captain for a long time before becoming the ANBU Chief, a rank that he was rumoured to still hold even now. Sure, they were _technically_ the same rank, but he could _actually_ annihilate her with fairly little effort if it came down to it.

Kurenai was many things, but no-one got to call her a coward. Decision made.

"Yes" she answered meekly. _Damn_.

"Good" Kakashi replied, eye-smile fixed firmly in place. He panned his gaze to his stunned students, all faces plainly shocked at how easily their female jōnin sensei had been cowed by their cycloptic teacher. "So we'll have our little spar on Friday afternoon, that's settled."

The class shivered as Kakashi's gaze became decidedly chillier. "For now" - Kakashi held one hand in the tiger sign as he pressed his other to the side of the basin - "let's add some incentive."

As steam began covering the area, rising up from the now _significantly_ warmer water, all that could be seen was a sadistic yet smug look on Kakashi's face and sweat forming on his students' faces. Sweat that it was safe to say was only partly down to the heat.

* * *

**And that's the end of that chapter! Phew, that was surprisingly hard to write. Their reactions to Naruto's confession was especially difficult, but I'm happy with how it came out in the end. I'm sure there are people that will be miffed that there's not more drama surrounding it, but I'm trying to instill a tad more maturity into the characters, and frankly, in the manga when they were less mature than what I'm pursuing now, none of them seemed in the least bit fussed.**

**I've decided to put my replies to reviews at the bottom from now on. There's been more reviews than before (which I **_**love**_**), and I don't want to force people to read through them if they don't want to. I know, aren't I kind?**

**thestorymaker2: I get that ninjas (assassins) are supposed to be sneaky, but I liked the idea that these ninjas aren't just assassins. Some of them don't sneak, they're right up front. Sure, some will be good at silently killing, some will not require words for their techniques, but then for some others who might specialise in direct combat, words will actually serve uses as concentrations aids, possibly even intimidation techniques. You'll have to wait and see what I do with that! And I compared Sasuke to Itachi because I've always found that unfair. Itachi got a lot of assistance when he was young, had a wartime academy with much better standards, had Kakashi as a captain throughout ANBU and was given special training and assistance because he was the clan prodigy. Let's face it, Sasuke wasn't really given the chance to approach his level before his entire family went kaput, which I don't think helped his development.**

**Abel Sephaos: Thanks. I must confess, I enjoy the way you speak!**

**Rain Dove: Enjoy said Shadow Clone!**

**Mizuhara Setsuna-Chan: Cool name by the way. I like stories where there is a little less Sasuke's an ass and Sakura is utterly worthless, so it's not going to be like that, I can say that much.**

**skg1991: I'm glad to hear that my story is different, no-one likes reruns.**

**darkhuntressxir: Now, he doesn't have to face it alone.**

**xXKyuubi-DevilXx: Thanks, I'm never sure how writing the emotions comes out, but I'm happy to hear I got you with them. I am considering the outfits yes, just trying to figure out how to go differently about it. Wait and see I suppose.**

**ZrPx: His chakra is kind of beastly when you think about it. Especially, consider that he had enough chakra to enter Sage Mode at all whilst restraining the Kyuubi. Hell, think about the fact that when the Kyuubi and he merged, he had enough chakra for his own chakra to act as a purifying agent to channel it throughout probably about 40,000 shinobi! It is insane when you actually sit down and think about it.**

**RealmeNevertobeseen: I'm happy you like the story idea, thanks for the good luck, think I'm going to need it!**

**Faroffinho: I'm trying to type fast, but my fingers, they bleed, they **_**bleed**_**!**

**Dareagon: I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the story, I'm desperately trying to keep the characters in character, there's no bigger turn-off for me when I'm reading a story than when a character goes completely 180 degrees.**

**Alabaster Ink: Oh all right, I wrote this chapter just because you asked for it. I'm thinking about the politics of the jinchūriki, it's hard to know how it really works. I mean, Konoha seem to work hard to keep theirs shtum, but everyone else seems to boast about it. But then none of the higher-ups seemed to realise Gaara was a jinchūriki. It's all very strange.**


	9. Act 1 - Chapter 6 - Nature

**It's been a while since I've updated, so I can only apologise for that. Been a tad hectic, but it's here now.**

**Quick recap, they've trained in the new style academy, done mainly taijutsu, there have been some revelations and bonding, overall feel-good stuff. In the next few chapters I'm going to be finishing off the remainder of their academy experiences and seeing how these new, better trained cadets can survive in the real world. Hopefully, as they're training as progressed, their activities can get a little hands on. Wish them and me luck!**

* * *

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.**

**Act 1 – Chapter 6 – Nature**

"I'm going to crush you teme!" Naruto bellowed, pointing his finger triumphantly at Sasuke. "You've been lucky with spars so far, now it's my turn!"

Sasuke silently shook his head, not even bothering to respond. For the past two months, he had been lucky enough to not be selected to spar against Naruto. Since they had their new senseis, he had fought against literally everyone other than Naruto, with varying degrees of success. Some, like Shikamaru, were easy enough to blitz. His strength lay in his brains (and even Sasuke was willing to acknowledge that Shikamaru was _seriously_ smart), not in his body. It was a simple matter to get in his face quick enough that he couldn't perform his trademark jutsu or lay any traps and he was easy to defeat. Some, like Sakura, were child's play for him. Without a clan style or any jutsu, his years of hard graft on the training field left him with an enormous advantage over her, in both speed and strength. Others, like Neji, Chōji and - here, he hesitated, a foul taste in his mouth - _Lee_ were far more of a challenge. Neji's technique was flawless in his family style, making a single touch incredibly dangerous, whether in a simple spar or fight to the death. Choji's raw power had caught him unawares, allowing the pleasingly plump boy to connect with a solid hit that Sasuke barely managed to remain conscious for. He never made the mistake of getting into a slugging match with the Akimichi again. Lee was...different. His taijutsu had advanced even faster than Sasuke's own. In a straight taijutsu spar, he was fast becoming the sort of opponent you would regret underestimating. He was still not in the leagues of the Last Uchiha, but he was getting there.

Sasuke hadn't been picked to fight Naruto since the last time Mizuki picked the matches, and it had been a nice change of scenery if he was completely honest. For whatever reason, Mizuki always insisted on Naruto and Sasuke fighting, which just left the dobe angry and himself disappointed. Still…

"Surrender now dobe, it'll be easier on you." Sasuke stated simply, staring boredly at his opponent on the other side of the arena.

As expected, this simply riled Naruto up further, making Sasuke smirk internally. Far too easy.

"Hajime!" Kakashi sliced his hand through the air, leaping back to land on the roof of the academy, pulling out his book in mid-air.

Bolting forwards, Naruto attempted a full-frontal assault, hoping to catch Sasuke unawares. Unknown to Naruto, he succeeded, but the Uchiha were famous for many things, including an unbeatable poker face.

Sasuke was certainly not surprised by Naruto's tactics, the complete opposite. Naruto had shown very little aptitude for planning of any kind, so this was exactly the kind of move he was expecting. What was surprising was his speed! He was almost the same speed as Lee, and Lee wasn't that much slower than he was! Unacceptable.

Darting under the roundhouse, Sasuke planted his palm into Naruto's sternum and heaved Naruto away from him, hoping to create some distance for him to think.

'He's definitely changed things, his speed… and his weight. But he doesn't look like he's gained any. Training weights. He's holding back.'

Infuriated by his conclusion that the _dobe_ was underestimating _him_, Sasuke exploded forwards with speed that was far beyond anything the class had seen so far. Swinging a foot in a high arc, his kick smashed clean through Naruto's hastily erected block and sent him bouncing across the floor of the arena.

Clambering to his feet, shaking his arms to get some life back in them, Naruto prepared to launch an attack with some shuriken, but was interrupted quite rudely by a vicious punch to the back of the head that sent him careening across the arena in the direction he had just been flung in.

Twisting in mid-air, Naruto launched several shuriken at Sasuke as he landed himself in a three-point stance with one hand still outstretched. Leaping sideways to dodge the shuriken that Sasuke had thrown back at him, Naruto launched volley after volley of shuriken and kunai, hoping to overwhelm his opponent.

"Not good enough dobe!" Sasuke called out, calmly deflecting the weapons that were on target with his own kunai, not bothering about those he could see were wayward. "If you're going for numbers, you're about a thousand short of troubling me!"

'After all this' Naruto thought to himself angrily, 'he's still not even broke a sweat'.

"Shadow clone jutsu!" Naruto yelled, summoning an impromptu ally to his side. Charging Sasuke down, he and his clone began throwing punches and kicks in random directions, attempting to surprise or outright overwhelm the Uchiha. Twisting between one Naruto's fist and the other's kick, Sasuke gripped the fist in front of him and used it to hurl one into the other, sending them both across the floor before one exploded into smoke.

Brushing himself down as he clambered back to his feet, Naruto glared at Sasuke. 'One's not enough, huh?'

"Kage bunshin no jutsu" Naruto called out, channelling more chakra into the technique and summoning three clones to his side. His clones fanned out slightly, forming a wide arc in front of Sasuke. With a silent signal, they charged once again.

"No, don't" Kakashi said, holding an arm out in front of Asuma. Asuma looked at Kakashi in surprise and anger.

"This is supposed to be a taijutsu spar, Kakashi! Not to mention Naruto has just used a kinjutsu in a simple spar with a comrade. We _have_ to stop this." Asuma argued, hoping to make Kakashi see sense.

"That technique is not a kinjutsu for Naruto. For any others, yes, but not for him. There is probably no-one in the world that is better suited to using that technique than him. And this is not a taijutsu spar." Kakashi looked up at the sky with apparent guilt on his face. "I told them they could use any means necessary: ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, weapons… nothing is off limits, apart from maiming or killing."

The shocked faces on both his teaching colleagues and his young charges let him know exactly what they thought of this idea.

"Naruto and Sasuke have history, and they need to work it out. Naruto needs to see exactly what flaws are in his technique and abilities, and there are not many of the class that can go toe to toe with him in a taijutsu spar right now. His speed and strength are impressive; combine that with his ability to recover from almost any attack and you get a taijutsu user that basically cannot be beaten down except by a vastly superior opponent."

Kakashi gazed back at the spar, watching Naruto attempt to pull any trick he could think of to defeat Sasuke. "Sasuke needs to see that there is more than blood in this world. Just because he is from an elite family and is considered to be the best of the generation, it doesn't mean he can rest on his laurels. The most shocking thing to Sasuke in this fight is not that Naruto has grown; it's that Naruto has grown faster than he has."

* * *

Dodge right. Punch. Block. Elbow. Block. Block. Block. Block…

'Damnit, I haven't landed a single solid hit on him!' Naruto looked at Sasuke's stance, trying to find some hole or flaw in the Uchiha Interceptor Fist that Sasuke was so adept in. 'Just one hit would show him I'm serious. I can do this'.

Rising to his feet, Naruto's hands formed what was quickly becoming his trademark hand-seal, engulfing himself and the area around him in white smoke. Looking at the twenty clones or so that now surrounded him, Naruto smiled to himself.

Sprinting towards Sasuke, Naruto darted to the side, hiding in a wall of clones as they charged, hoping to blindside the raven-haired Uchiha. Seeing an opening, he bolted between two clones, only to meet an elbow descending towards his face. Knowing he couldn't block fast enough, he did the only thing he could think of. He dispelled.

Sasuke overbalanced on his swing, his body following the arm that fell unexpectedly far. Recovering sharply, he backhanded a clone that launched himself from his right and spun to deliver a straight kick to the clone to his left, but found his foot caught by another clone. Launching himself into the air, he used the clone as a springboard and brought his other foot around to deliver a devastating spinning kick to the clone's head.

A cloud of white smoke was all his foot connected with, causing Sasuke to overextend once more, this time in mid-air with no support, facing nowhere but the ground. With no leverage and no support, he had no way to block the clone he could see bringing his foot down in a classic axe kick.

Sasuke collided with the ground with an audible grunt, feeling his body compress heavily against the floor. 'I'm exhausted. I'm faster, stronger, more experienced than Naruto...but he just keeps going.' Sasuke's face set in a determined scowl as he rose from the floor onto all fours.

'I've got to work on my stamina, it wouldn't do to be exhausted in a real battle.' Sasuke smirked to himself, glad at least that he could take something from the spar. Looking over at his opponent, he was, only to himself of course, quietly glad that Naruto was laying on his back gulping in large quantities of air. Another few minutes of a fight of that intensity, and Sasuke would have been forced to either take things up a notch or surrender, and surrender was _never_ an option.

* * *

"I can't believe he hit Sasuke-kun." Ino mumbled to herself, shocked at Naruto's progression.

"That Naruto has been working hard, he's come a long way" Kurenai said happily to Gai.

'Far enough I think' Kakashi said to himself thoughtfully, before clearing his throat loudly. "Alright, as promised, I think you're all ready to learn a little more."

Kiba stared at Kakashi blankly. "What do you mean Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi eye-smiled at Kiba. "We said at the beginning that none of you would move to more advanced topics until everyone was caught up to speed. As you just saw from that spar, the person that was last in the class just landed a solid hit on the genius of the class. I think that counts as being up to scratch." Kakashi's eye became a little harder as he gazed at the rest of the class. "That is assuming that the rest of you have been working just as hard, and that Naruto is still slightly behind you all. I assume that that is the truth?"

He smirked behind his mask as he clearly decided to ignore the nervous fidgeting amongst the class. In truth, they _had_ all been working very hard, but even he was surprised at Naruto's growth. The boy was spending almost all his time training with Lee or training alone, driven single-mindedly towards a goal that he refused to communicate to any of his classmates or senseis. At the rate he was improving, he would be able to truly challenge Sasuke soon, and that would cause the growth of both of the boys to explode. He sighed happily: that was a day he would look forward to, training two ninjas of the highest heritage as they desperately tried to outdo one another. Maybe one day they'd even be able to spar with him too. Now _that_ was a day to look forward to.

"Tomorrow, we are going to learn some rudimentary ninjutsu, ones that will make good use of your newly-honed chakra control. And don't worry" Kakashi added, looking pointedly at the three older would-be graduates, "there will be something to keep you interested too. In fact, the three of you are going to make wonderful training tools tomorrow."

The class looked apprehensively at one another, not sure whether it was the younger or elder students that should be worried. It was quickly and silently agreed that when Kakashi was involved, they should _all_ be very worried indeed.

* * *

A heavy bag landed squarely at Tenten's feet, the top falling open as it fell to expose an enormous amount of dulled kunai and shuriken. A smile lit up her face as she looked at Kakashi like a puppy that had just been told that the world was made up of one big bone. Lee paled as he looked at her face, leaning across to whisper to Hinata. "This...is not good."

"I agree, Tenten is a very good shot. I hope they're not to use on us." With one look at the incredulous faces around her, she sighed. "It can't hurt to hope."

"Tenten, these are for you to throw at your classmates." Kakashi stated, explicitly and far too happily. "They are blunted so they won't penetrate - this of course will be of little relief after you realise just how much being hit with a lump of metal hurts."

Kakashi glanced at his fellow senseis as they shook their heads ruefully. They were right, he was really getting into this teaching thing. He really felt like he was getting through to these kids.

"We'll go through this activity for a few hours before we move on." The class just about managed to hold off on sighing in relief. This is Kakashi - just because an activity has an endpoint does not mean he won't do what he can to make it even more hellish. "Of course, if my criteria aren't met, we will be doing this activity every day until they are."

* * *

"He's insane!" Ino hissed to Sakura as they ate lunch, looking over her shoulder as if fearing he was behind them, listening.

'Futile really' Kakashi thought to himself, resting peacefully in the tree above the class bench. 'As though I'd let her spot me.'

"Who the hell gives Tenten almost unlimited weaponry and lets her loose? On _anyone_, let alone on _CHILDREN?!_" Ino exploded, rubbing her shoulders pitifully. Tenten had been kind enough to aim for non-vital and non-visible spots (so Ino had started getting a little more physical with her training, no-one said she had to give up _looking_ the part), but Tenten didn't need to look quite so pleased with herself with every connection.

Kakashi's exercise was a simple one. To teach the basics of the Kawarimi (or substitution) technique, he first demonstrated the technique to them and then had them use it in a simulated combat situation. In less technical terms, they had to substitute to escape the unerringly accurate arm of Tenten and the less successful among them had more than a few bruises to show for their troubles. And as angry as they all may be at Tenten, after a few days of this being repeated each morning, there wasn't a single one of them that couldn't substitute out of the way at least nine times out of ten.

The one exception to this rule was of course, Lee. Being unable to mould chakra to form jutsus, he was incapable of performing this technique. Undeterred, Gai used this opportunity to go through more personal training with the budding taijutsu user, in order to compensate for what he was missing out on.

"AAAAAHHHH" Sakura screamed in shock as Kakashi appeared in front of her, knocking the food from the table as he stared into her face.

"Maa Sakura, so rude. You don't really hate me, do you?" Kakashi whined, thankful that his mask prevented his smirk from ruining his puppy dog eye.

Kurenai looked at Asuma sadly. "He really is enjoying messing with them far too much. He's going to end up scarring them."

Asuma returned Kurenai's look with a more thoughtful of his own. "He is having a lot of fun with this…"

The two of their eyes met as they considered the unspoken ending to Asuma's sentence.

'-why shouldn't we?'

* * *

"Ok everyone, today we're going to discuss the elements" Asuma announced cheerfully from the front of the class.

Not receiving his expected response, Asuma looked more carefully at his class. There was no doubt they had grown even further in the past few weeks, each of them now having an excellent grasp of the basic ninjutsu required to finish the academy. Granted, every one of them now hated every one of their senseis, but it was a small price to pay, whether for their success or for the fun that he and Kurenai had had with them was neither known nor cared about.

After concluding that joining in with the torment was clearly the most productive teaching method they could employ for this particular group of students, Asuma and Kurenai began thinking up more imaginative ways to tort- _teach_ their students. They used every method they could think of, from Kurenai placing some of them in genjutsus to make them behave differently or approach an exercise differently, to Asuma joining Tenten on the throwing exercise, but only focussing on Tenten. That one Tenten especially disliked.

"Asuma-sensei?" Shino queried, his monotonous tone easily being heard across the class. "You have already taught us about the elements."

Asuma's smile widened slightly. "Yes we have, but not quite like this. This time you're not going to learn about the elements so much as you're going to learn about _your_ elements."

He waited for a moment for this to sink in, before chuckling at the widening smiles on most of the students' faces. "Kakashi and I will test your element using this chakra paper." He brandished a small wad of paper in the air.

"Don't ask me where it comes from or what it does, I don't know. That is a very closely guarded secret in each village, I wouldn't tell you if I knew." Asuma warned, nipping any questions in the bud. Of course, he _did _know, but he wouldn't tell them that, just as he said.

One by one, the class proceeded to the front and channelled some chakra through the paper as instructed. There were many expected results, Fire being the most common as always in Konoha.

Kiba, Shikamaru, Sakura, and Chōji all had an affinity to fire, Ino and Hinata having an affinity to water. Shino, Neji and Lee had an earth affinity, Lee being surprised he had an affinity at all. Tenten was pleasantly surprised with having an affinity for lightning, it being able to improve her deadliness with her thrown and melee weapons.

The biggest surprises were Sasuke and Naruto. Sasuke's chakra paper crinkled to the centre before catching fire at the edges, demonstrating a strong affinity for lightning and a weaker affinity for fire. This was unusual for Uchiha, who were famous for their trademark fire jutsus.

Naruto's paper split into two pieces, both of which simultaneously caught fire.

"That's...unusual." Kakashi announced slowly, trying to make sense of exactly what it was he was seeing. "A twin affinity of equal strength is usually an indicator of a bloodline, but…"

Kakashi trailed off, not willing to get into exactly why he was so surprised. Normally bloodlines were passed down by parents, but Kakashi knew for a fact that neither of Naruto's parents had a bloodline, barring Kushina's Uzumaki traits.

"Ok" Kakashi continued, dropping the subject. "Chōji, Shikamaru, Kiba, Sakura and Naruto, you're with Asuma. Everyone else, come with me."

Kakashi began to walk away, considering the best way to teach a varied group about their different elements, especially considering one of them had two to work with. Two, at his age? That was worth thinking about. If you were born with two elements, it was usually a bloodline. Otherwise, you had one element and you learned the others. If Sasuke clearly was born with a lightning element, that meant he had learnt at least some of the fire element already. A jutsu perhaps?

Summoning several shadow clones to his side, Kakashi split his part of the class according to their elements with one clone accompanying each. Although Sasuke…

"Which element would you prefer to learn first Sasuke?" Kakashi asked. "With a natural lightning affinity, it will be quicker for you to pick up that element, but I leave the choice to you."

Sasuke looked thoughtful for a moment, before smirking slightly. "Why not do both at once?"

Placing his hands in a familiar seal, Sasuke called out "Shadow Clone Jutsu" and summoned a single clone to his side, albeit leaving both himself and the clone looking more than a little tired for their troubles.

"Let's go" both Sasuke's declared in unison, quietly proud that the past few weeks of desperately training capacity and stamina to catch up with the dobe of all people had paid off.

* * *

"WHAT?!" Naruto bellowed, staring over at the two Sasukes. "Sasuke can make shadow clones now?" He may have angry on the outside, but that was nothing to the storm that was raging inside of him. He had finally found something he could do that no-one else in the class could, even though there were three of them that were taught this technique, he was the only one that could perform it. Sasuke got close after a few tries, but couldn't muster the strength to create a solid clone. Chōji tried repeatedly, but he too didn't quite have enough.

Asuma laid a hand on Naruto's shoulder, causing the young blonde to look at him. "Don't worry about it Naruto, soon enough you'll all have your own niches. That technique is known by a great deal of Konoha shinobi, including all four of us senseis. All of you were going to learn it at one point or another, this just means you need to work even harder to find where you can stand out."

Asuma turned back to the rest of the group, continuing his explanation of fire chakra and how it was used. "Fire chakra is very powerful offensively, but lacks severely in the defensive department. In terms of sheer destruction, it is hard to match some of the legendary fire-style techniques, especially those made famous by the Uchiha clan."

At this he focussed his attention solely on Sasuke, or at least the one that had just arrived with the group. "Your family was legendary for its fire-style jutsus, that was part of the reason they were such mortal enemies of the Senju clan. Considering the Senjus' love for all things natural, especially the forests which they called home, a clan that specialised in using fire was both the enemy that they dreaded to face and dreamed to defeat."

Stepping back, Asuma ran through several hand seals before ending on the Tiger seal and blowing a large stream of fire that formed into a ball before smashing through a few of the target dummies placed at the other end of the academy training field.

"That was a very basic technique called the Grand Fireball jutsu. I won't bother explaining what it does to you -" he glanced towards the smoking trail it had scorched along the ground "- I think that's clear."

Asuma showed them the hand-signs and set them to working on the technique. He was fairly sure that the majority would be able to at least produce a little flame by the end of the day, seeing as how they all had the fire element as their primary nature, barring the two with two natures.

Setting them on their way, or in Naruto's case, a shadow clone on its way, Asuma turned to Naruto. "Now Naruto, my primary affinity is wind, which is very rare in Konoha. In fact, you and I may be two of the only wind-style shinobi in current rotation at the moment. As such, there is a fair amount I can teach you, but it is limited to what I have been able to pick up. There was no wind-style user to teach me when I was your age, so I had to develop my own methods and techniques, so bear with me if some of them are a little rough around the edges."

Asuma turned away and flashed through another few hand-seals. Inhaling deeply, he uttered "Fūton: Kaze no taihō!" (Wind-style: Wind Cannon)

Exhaling in a single, sharp burst, Asuma fired a ball of wind at a tree stood a little way away. As the class turned to watch the effect, the technique impacted with the tree and exploded, punching a hole clean through the tree, causing the top half to crash to the ground.

With stars in his eyes, Naruto was immediately begging at Asuma's feet. "Please Asuma-sensei, please teach me! That was so cool!"

"I'm glad you think so, it's my own technique" Asuma replied with a smile. "It took me years to figure out how to perform this technique, so watch closely."

Asuma repeated the hand-seals for Naruto, surprised to see that he picked up on them the first time. Considering the boy's memory was disastrously poor - as demonstrated by his abysmal test scores - it was pleasing to see that there was at least something that stuck in his head on the first try.

Asuma was about to go into greater detail about the workings of the jutsu when he was interrupted by angry yelling in the area of his clone and the fire-natured students. Looking over, he and Naruto bore witness to Sasuke storming away from the clone, before turning away and launching a fireball, similar in shape and heat if a little smaller in size, towards the training posts, destroying several and leaving scorch marks on the others.

* * *

"I told you that I had completed this exercise before! This jutsu is a right-of-passage for all Uchiha, so I took it on myself to learn it. Teach me something else!" Sasuke demanded of the clone, infuriated that he was finally being offered some proper training, only to find that it was useless to him.

"And I told you no. I admit, I didn't believe that you could do this technique; I was wrong. But that doesn't change anything. I will not teach you a second technique before the others have learnt their first; we're trying to close the gaps between all of you, not widen them." Asuma's clone stated simply.

Holding a hand up to forestall Sasuke's objections, he continued. "I didn't say that I wouldn't teach you anything at all, just that I would not teach you a second jutsu. Did you notice anything different about my fireball and yours?" Asuma questioned.

Sasuke sighed, knowing from first hand experience how stubborn these senseis were. Humouring them was honestly the only way to move things along. "They looked the same to me. They both destroyed the training posts they were aiming at." Sasuke paused, looking at the expectant face of his sensei. He sighed again. "Fine. Your's was bigger, but only slightly."

Asuma smiled, happy that one of his most prideful students was finally willing to notice something critical of himself. And it had only taken several months!

"Exactly." Asuma glanced around to the see the rest of the class listening in to their conversation and chuckled. "For once it's useful that you're all so nosy. Gather round, this will be useful for all of you to hear.

"The Grand Fireball technique is a C-rank offensive jutsu. It is quite powerful against a single opponent or a group, its main weakness being how easy it is to see and hear coming, and thus dodge. To make it more powerful, the flames can be made hotter, faster moving or the fireball larger.

"Sasuke's technique and my own were the same temperature, same speed, but different sizes. But, this is not the type of technique that you can simply overload with chakra to make it more powerful, as the chakra needs to be controlled and compressed into a ball. The more chakra pumped into the technique, the harder it is to control, and for a C-rank jutsu like this one, the limit on the chakra is really quite low.

"To make it hotter, bigger, faster, any kind of improvement at all, you need to improve your own chakra and control, to fine-tune the amount that is used. It is easy to put the correct amount of chakra into this technique; it's a decent amount without being too big for most people to use and too small to be effective. My fireball was bigger because, quite simply put, I'm better at using fire-nature chakra than Sasuke is."

Asuma ended on this painfully blunt statement, inwardly laughing at the outraged look on Sasuke's face. "Sasuke's natural element is lightning, and he has a minor affinity for fire-nature chakra. I was wondering how that happened, and now I know: Sasuke has spent a lot of time practising this jutsu, so much so that his chakra has automatically become slightly aligned to fire. My natural element is also not fire, but I have spent a lot longer working on it than he has, so my technique was stronger.

"I am going to teach you how to harness the element better. The first step to using an element is usually to learn some techniques of that element, and then progressing onto fine-tuning your control of the element in order to boost those techniques, and maybe even create some of your own." At this, Asuma looked pointedly straight at Sasuke. "I did say I would not teach you any more jutsus yet, but I will take you through this exercise so that you can learn how to better harness the element. Ok?"

Sasuke looked thoughtfully at the ground, remembering vividly Asuma's fireball. Even Sasuke himself would admit that Asuma's was more powerful. But Itachi's still made Asuma's look like an ember, such was his mastery of the technique. Is that how Itachi was able to use that technique like that, like no-one else seemed to be able to?

Sasuke nodded at Asuma. "Alright, I'll learn how to harness it first. But _then _I want a new technique. Deal?"

Asuma snorted at the genin-to-be. "It's a deal Sasuke." Normally he would have happily put the young prodigy in his place, but he knew full well that the class would learn this relatively basic technique a great deal faster than Sasuke would be able to begin mastering the fire element. He probably should have mentioned that it takes most people _years_ to even get anywhere with it. There was a reason that usually only Jōnin level and over ninja created their own techniques.

Dismissing the class back to their technique, Asuma handed Sasuke a leaf from the ground, holding on himself. "The key to this technique is to ignite the leaf. It probably sounds stupid, but it's harder than you think. You have to focus your chakra into the leaf and change the nature of it to fire, before the leaf can be blown away from your hand.

To demonstrate, he held his hand, palm up with a leaf in the centre. Channeling chakra into it, the leaf flew up and off of his hand. "That's normal chakra. Just enough and it'll stick, too much and it'll fly away. But I promise you, use the amount it takes to make it stick, and it'll never burn. You have to use plenty of chakra and-" he held up his other hand in the same way, showing the leaf catching fire in his palm "-make it burn."

Asuma gestured with his hand at the trees around them. "This technique takes time and effort, but there are plenty of leaves. Hop to."

* * *

"Shadow clone jutsu!" Naruto shouted, summoning several clones to himself. "Let's try this again!"

His clones responded with a chorus of "Hai!" before the first one stepped up. Performing the hand seals as quickly as possible, he shouted "Grand Fireball Jutsu" before blowing out a decent-sized fireball from his mouth. At least, that's what was meant to happen. In reality, the fireball detonated in his mouth, dispelling the clone.

"Awww" the group moaned. The next clone stepped up, feeling slightly nervous. Sure it couldn't die, but a mouth full of fire? That had to hurt, if only for a second.

"Naruto is kind of impressive, isn't he?" Chōji asked, munching happily on some chips whilst he took a break to let his chakra restore itself. "I can't even make a clone, and his clones can make their own clones, which can then perform a jutsu that is taxing for any one of us to do. That's a lot of chakra."

He was interrupted by a collective sigh as another clone went up in smoke. "He definitely has a lot of chakra-", another clone exploded, this time taking two others with it, "-but I wouldn't exactly call that impressive" Sakura deadpanned.

* * *

Over the next two weeks, the students worked harder than they ever had before to try to master their respective jutsus. The majority got it, the exceptions being Sakura, Ino and Naruto. For Sakura and Ino, it was a simple matter of chakra capacity. Sakura especially needed to expand her reserves before she was able to perform the grand fireball without collapsing immediately afterwards. Ino was the same, though thanks to her clan training previously, combined with the lower chakra requirement of the Suiton: Mizurappa _(Water Release: Wild Water Wave) _meant that this was only an obstacle for a short time.

Naruto's issue was unsurprisingly his control. Given that both of the jutsus given to him by Asuma were C-rank jutsus that were sensitive to the chakra amount pumped into them, requiring more control for a higher chakra quantity, he had yet to have a clone survive using the Grand Fireball, and had managed no more than a strong breeze to come from his mouth with the Wind Cannon.

In fact, it wasn't until one of their infrequent breaks (that Naruto skipped out of frustration), that he finally made some progress. Asuma had taken pity on the boy and given him a different technique to learn. Naruto was still struggling with it, but far less so.

-Flashback!-

"Naruto, you need to eat something at least" Tenten attempted to reason with the panting boy in front of her. The rest of the class had given up trying to convince the legendarily stubborn blonde to join them, and instead were sat back enjoying the show of Naruto catapulting backwards with every attempt at the Futon: Daitoppa _(Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)_.

"I can do this!" Naruto snapped at Tenten, staring back at the trees in front of him that seemed to almost taunt him with their continued uprightness. For her part, Tenten just sighed and gave up, finally walking back to join the audience.

Breathing deep, Naruto tried to calm himself down. He didn't know why, but his chakra always got...wilder, the more worked up he got. It was one of the reasons he worked so hard to stay happy while he was younger, no matter how hard it was. The worse he felt, the more...unstable he felt. Back then, he thought he was sick. He cast a meaningful glance at his navel. 'Guess that was you though, huh furball?'

Forming his hand signs slowly, he allowed his chakra to flow along his coils, learning how it felt with every movement, every hand sign, every breath. readying himself, he funnelled his chakra through his hands to his palms, imagining it flowing forth like a raging torrent, unstoppable.

"Futon: Daitoppa!" he shouted, throwing his hands forwards as though throwing something off of him.

A howling wind exploded from his hands, ripping through the trees with incredible force, stripping branches from trees, even uprooting a few directly in front of him.

Spinning around, he flashed a massive grin and an eager peace sign to his classmates, immensely proud of his eventual success. Though he was internally quite disappointed at their lack of reaction, he reasoned that it did take a long time for him to get it right, people had probably stopped watching. How wrong he was.

The class sat, food halfway to mouths, eyes as wide as saucepans. Even Kakashi, eternally aloof as he was, raised an eyebrow. 'That was a lot of chakra in that attack. I'm surprised it held its form, though the Daitoppa is one of the few techniques that you can overload if you can control it. Only issue is, I wouldn't have thought Naruto could control it. Hm.'

Surprisingly, the first person to recover and run up to Naruto was Lee. "Yosh! Naruto-kun, that attack was truly incredible. The passion! The power! THE YOUTH!" he screamed, holding a triumphant fist to the sky, looking for all the world like it was his own achievement.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head bashfully. "Heh, it wasn't that great. Thanks bushy-brows."

"Actually Naruto, I would struggle myself to outdo that" Asuma commented offhandedly. "That jutsu is one of the ones you can overload, but to do it to that extent is not something a normal academy student would be able to do. I'm impressed." Asuma ruffled Naruto's hair proudly.

Naruto stared at the smiles in front of him, feeling himself try to avoid welling up. If this is what having friends, real friends felt like...he would keep his vow. No matter what.

* * *

"A survival exercise?" Sasuke queried, looking at the scroll he had just been thrown. "We've done these before. Is it not a bit basic?"

Kakashi chuckled, putting the rest of the class on edge. Kakashi laughing was _never_ a good thing. "You'd think that, so did I. So I've...tweaked the parameters a bit."

Sasuke sighed as the class glared at him, though his Uchiha pride would not allow him to back down from any of them, he got their point. 'Ask a stupid question…'

Kakashi tossed another scroll to Naruto, waiting for him to unroll it and skim its contents. As he did, Naruto's eyes got wider, before he stared up at Kakashi. "Really sensei? This seems a bit much, even for you."

"Quit complaining and pick your teams. Unless you'd like me to pick them?" Kakashi threatened, causing Naruto and Sasuke to shake their heads rapidly. "Thought not. Pick."

Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other before sighing. Each holding out a hand, they struck a very bizarre pose. Backsides sticking out and wiggling, one fist clenched in the other hand, the class sighed whilst looking at them.

"Jan, Ken, Po!" Naruto and Sasuke chanted in unison.

"Ha!" Naruto yelled. "I always win at this! I pick first!"

Naruto placed a hand to his chin as he gazed at the lined up classmates, their faces ranging from hopeful to fearful.

"Lee!" Naruto called out, embracing with his friend that immediately launched into a bone-breaking hug with him.

"Yosh Naruto-kun! Thank you for picking me, I will not let you down!" Lee babbled happily, swinging Naruto around like a rapidly-turning-purple ragdoll.

"Shikamaru" Sasuke called boredly, his face perfectly matching his now teammate.

"Smart choice, pick the tactician. Sasuke's already thinking" Kurenai mused.

"Neji!"

"Naruto's going for power, that's fair enough."

"Tenten"

"There's a long-distance fighter for Sasuke, she'll be useful."

"Hinata!"

"Another close-range fighter for Naruto, he's got two people with very similar abilities in Neji and Hinata...not sure I would have picked both."

"Chōji"

"Powerful close-range fighter to compliment his long-distance teammate."

"Sakura-chan!"

"Heart over mind Naruto, really?"

"Ino"

"….Did Naruto really just let Sasuke have the Ino-Shika-Cho team?"

"Kiba!"

"Another close-range fighter? What's he doing?"

"Shino"

"Surprised Shino was picked last, he's stronger than a lot of his classmates. I suppose they just don't know him that well."

Kurenai paused in her commentary to look at her fellow senseis for the first time, noticing they were giving her some very funny looks. "What?"

"Where did you get the microphone and clothes?" Asuma asked, gesturing towards Kurenai's attire, which now looked much more like a sports commentator than the kunoichi that she was.

* * *

**Ok, and that's a wrap! I'm not going to bother boring anyone with any more commentary than that, so I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you next time!**


	10. Act 1 - Chapter 7 - Practice

Don't own Naruto, not mine, etc. etc.

* * *

A rustle of leaves. Was that a footstep? A voice? The wind? Naruto's head flashed left and right, his golden hair glinting in the sunlight streaming through the trees as his squad leapt through the overhanging branches.

"This looks like a good place to camp Naruto" Neji announced, alighting on the ground. "We've got a decently open area in all directions, we'll be able to see them coming thanks to my byakugan, and they won't be able to take much shelter in the area around us."

Sakura nodded. "Plus, we've got running water. That will help with any ninjutsu Hinata can use to counter any of their katon ninjutsu."

Hinata looked down at her feet at Sakura's words, internally quivering at the thought that she might be called upon to deal with a threat.

"Don't worry so much Hinata!" Kiba barked happily. "Anything that comes our way we can deal with, right?"

Hinata gave a small smile to Kiba in thanks, before taking a few deep breaths to clear her mind. It would do no good to allow fear to get the better of her now, she needs to focus. Her teammates were depending on it. Her teammates were depending on _her_.

"So taicho, what's our plan?" Lee asked, once they had all settled around the clearing.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head nervously. It was one thing to be shouting from the rooftops that he would lead them all someday, it was something very different to actually lead anything at all!

"Yeah, you must have picked us for a reason right?" Sakura asked suspiciously. "I mean, you wouldn't have just randomly picked people for something like this, would you? You must have had a plan, right?" Sakura's voice took on an unconsciously threatening tone towards the end of her questions, vowing to batter the blonde if he'd at the very least not thought about it a bit.

"O-of course I had a plan Sakura-chan!" Naruto stammered, well aware of the look in Sakura's eyes. She had always hit hard, but after all of this training, Sakura-chan hit _really_ hard now!

"I have a lot of stamina and chakra, so I can keep using ninjutsu for a time, but they'll be stronger if I can focus on them for a minute, so I picked Lee because his taijutsu is one of the best in the class. Neji's is also really good, plus he has those cool eyes -" which now had a tick above one of them due to Naruto's description "-that would let us see people coming."

Sakura nodded in agreement, along with the rest of the group. Even Hinata, idolising Naruto like she did, didn't expect any kind of thought to have gone into this beyond a whim. To hear that he had actually considered the potential strengths and weaknesses of the team was...surprising.

"Once Sasuke had picked Shikamaru, I knew he then had two katon users. He then got Ino, so there was only one suiton user to counter their jutsus left, so I picked Hinata!" Naruto was of course obvlious to the downcast look Hinata gained at hearing that she was a forced selection, not a choice. "But that's ok, because Hinata's much better at suiton ninjutsu than Ino, plus her taijutsu is good as well."

Hinata's face lit up at hearing these words from her crush, whilst inside Naruto's mind he was sighing in relief. Ignorant he may be, but even he realised that Hinata had a serious confidence problem, though her jackass of a cousin - at this he threw a mental dirty glance at Neji - really didn't help matters.

"I picked you Sakura-chan because I suck at making plans beforehand. In a fight I can usually come up with something, but in advance?" Naruto shook his head despondently. "I can just never seem to plan things out unless it's about to happen. So I picked you, being the smartest person in the class!"

'SHANNARO!' Inner Sakura screamed, pumping her fist into the air. 'Making a name for myself! Sasuke-kun is one step closer' Inner Sakura finished her celebrations by rubbing her hands together and chuckling, even causing Sakura to sweatdrop at the behaviour of her somewhat psychotic second-personality.

"Kiba, I picked you because you're not as creepy as Shino." Naruto laughed, laughing harder at the enraged look on Kiba's face. "Kidding Kiba, it was because you're fast, and with Akamaru you're basically two fighters. Combine that with my clones and we have a definite advantage in numbers!" Naruto finished with a grin, happy that his team seemed relatively satisfied with his explanation.

Silence greeted his conclusion. It was relatively well-thought out! Sure, there were flaws, but overall...Sakura lowered her fist. He survived, for now.

"Ok" Sakura announced, grabbing a stick and beginning to make impromptu battle plans in the dirt. "Let's get to work."

* * *

"Shikamaru, you'll work with Ino and Chōji, along with Shino. Shino, you help corral, Shikamaru, you catch them. Then Chōji can either smash them or Ino can steal their body and turn them against each other." Sasuke stated, staring into each person's eyes as he spoke to them, making sure they understood to follow his instructions.

"Tenten and I will be the other group, we'll go and ambush who we can. Stay close enough that we can come if there's any fighting in your area and vice versa."

"Are you going to explain the exercise to us or not?" Tenten snapped. She had been travelling alongside the stuck-up Uchiha the whole way, trying to get him to tell them what the purpose of the activity was, but he kept shushing her. Actually _shushing_ her. She wasn't four!

"It's simple. It's a survival exercise, just like Kakashi said." Sasuke replied. "Our team versus theirs, two-day time limit. The team who is either all eliminated before the time is up, or who has the most members defeated at the end is the loser."

"What are the parameters?" Shino asked.

"None really. No maiming or lethal attacks, but other than that, ninjutsu, taijutsu, weapons… whatever you want" Sasuke explained. "No more questions" he announced, cutting Ino off, who then proceeded to look the other way and pout, causing Sasuke to shake his head.

"You won't be joining us in the camp then I assume?" said Shikamaru. At Sasuke's nodded, he hummed. "Ok, that makes sense considering the time limit. We really can't afford to wait for them to come to us. Should we-"

Shikamaru stopped when Sasuke leapt off into the trees, darting from branch to branch until he was almost out of sight. Shikamaru sighed and looked at Tenten. "Good luck to you."

Tenten cried anime tears at the thought of being alone with the broody stick-in-the-mud, but she was a professional. A kunoichi. She'd deal with it.

* * *

"Have you seen anything Hinata?" Sakura asked, keeping a keen eye out herself, though she was well aware that Hinata would see any threats coming a long while before her. It was a comfort thing, to rely on one's own self. It was something that she realised that she'd never really experienced, and once she'd had a taste of the independence and self-sufficiency that came with being serious about her training, she didn't really want to go back to that oblivious little girl that she had grown out of.

"Not yet" Hinata replied. Not that she would see it before Neji, she thought. His byakugan's range was one of the largest in the Hyuga clan, whether main or branch family. Yet another area where she was unable to compete...

Their vigil was suddenly interrupted by the ground shaking ever so slightly, as a trail of smoke began rising through the air. With a glance an unspoken agreement was made, and the two girls darted off through the trees.

"Katon: Gokyakuu no jutsu!" Naruto bellowed, launching a fireball streaking towards his opponent.

Speeding through hand-seals, Sasuke launched a fireball of equal size and intensity, the two techniques meeting in the middle, clashing for dominance over one another. Before long, Sasuke's greater experience with the technique won through and his fireball began barrelling towards Naruto unimpeded.

Leaping out of the way, Naruto summoned several shadow clones to his side, sending them darting through the woods surrounding the artificial clearing made as a result of the two boys' fight.

"Give it up dobe, you aren't going to beat me!" Sasuke called out, boredom dripping from every word.

Naruto's only response was to hurtle at Sasuke once again, throwing punches and kicks in seemingly random combinations that somehow still flowed together.

'Hn, he really has gotten better with his taijutsu, Even though he's not much good at learning a style, he's taken all of the styles we've been shown and blended them together to make a style that suits him better. Unpredictable, random...but not enough'.

Blocking a high kick from Naruto, Sasuke quickly grabbed Naruto's ankle and hurled him towards a tree. As Naruto caught his bearings and landed rather shakily upon it, Sasuke blurred into view in front of him, his fists already descending towards Naruto's head in an almighty hay-maker, clearly intending to take Naruto out of the fight before reinforcements could come to assist.

Seeing Naruto's smirk, Sasuke threw himself backwards just in time to catch the tell-tale hiss of an explosive note, before the shock wave caught him and flung him to the ground below. Climbing back to his feet quickly, he hissed as a wave of pain racked him, leaving him feeling slightly dizzy as it radiated from the back of his head.

"I'd give it up teme… that looks nasty." Naruto jeered from the treeline as he sat watching, entirely unharmed.

"Dobe… how did you do that?" Sasuke asked, well aware of his vulnerable position due to his injury. As galling as it was, the blonde idiot had caught him well unawares. If nothing else, Sasuke would learn not to underestimate people so readily from this encounter!

"Oh it was easy" Naruto boasted, a smug grin plastered across his face. "Asuma-sensei explained how clones could be used in different ways, how they could be different elements, or even made to explode." Here he paused, looking a little embarrassed.

"But I couldn't make them explode, no matter how much chakra I put into them. So I settled for the next best thing and stuck a paper bomb to him. Cool huh?"

Sasuke smirked, thankful that Naruto really didn't understand that some things were better kept a secret, especially from someone you were fighting against. For a second there, Sasuke had almost been worried that Naruto had been able to protect himself or do something else impressive. As it was, it was plain old Naruto, just being inventive with his clones.

Palming a kunai, Sasuke prepared to gather himself to attack Naruto. Possible concussion or not, he was an Uchiha. An Uchiha was never defeated, only in death. Tensing his body, Sasuke was startled by the whistle of a kunai which embedded itself in the tree next to Naruto's head.

Of course, he was not nearly as startled as Naruto, who promptly screamed and lost his concentration. Which, being thirty foot up a tree held on by nothing but sheer willpower and chakra control, was a terrible mistake. Yelling in fear as he hurtled to the ground, Naruto ploughed into the dirt, which promptly exploded in a plume of dust and...smoke?

Sasuke growled to himself, now realising that the _dobe_ that just embarrassed him was a clone! It wasn't even the real Naruto, and he still slipped up against it. Berating himself for his weakness, Sasuke turned and walked away from the battlefield, passing a concerned and slightly expectant looking Tenten on the way.

"H-hey! I just saved your ass from getting beat down, the least you could do is thank me!" She yelled indignantly.

"I didn't need your help. I could have taken him, injured or not" Sasuke sneered over his shoulder, beckoning her to follow him with a nod.

Tenten glared at his retreating figure. "Sasuke, enough."

Sasuke stopped mid-step. "What?"

"We both know Naruto could beat me in a straight fight - he has done several times in spars as it is. But right now, _I_ could beat you!" Tenten snapped. "It's fine if you want to act like the great and mighty Uchiha all the time, but at least don't start lying to people's faces. That's just sad."

Brushing past a stunned Sasuke's shoulder, Tenten proceeded to head further into the woods, fully intending to regroup with the rest of their team.

* * *

"Heh" Naruto chuckled softly to himself as he, along with the rest of his team, gathered around their small fire.

"What's so funny?" asked Kiba.

"One of my clones found Sasuke in the forest - roughed him up pretty good too" Naruto replied smugly.

"Of course he did" stated Sakura, patting Naruto on the shoulder and throwing a look to the rest of the group. "Moving on to the land of reality, is everyone ready?"

"Hey!" Naruto shouted, "it's not a lie, it's true. My clone used an explosive note and managed to give Sasuke a nasty cut on his head. He looked about ready to drop before…" He tailed off, realising that the end of the story was somewhat less glamorous than the beginning.

"...then what?" Neji asked. "If your clone really did manage to take out their most powerful player, it may be time to strike, whilst they're weakened."

"...my clone fell out of the tree" Naruto replied sadly. Looking at the somewhat fed-up members of his team, he felt the need to defend his clone. "He was almost taken out by a kunai though, so it surprised him!"

Shaking his head, Neji turned his attention back to the fire. "At any rate, I say we strike now. It is dark, we have made good use of our tracking skills to remain undetected by them for the majority of the day, so they should be tired."

"In the dark, we have the advantage as well. We have two sets of byakugan, Kiba's and Akamaru's noses and my nose and eyes too!" Naruto exclaimed, slamming a fist into his hand. "They've only got Shino as a sensory type, so we should be able to take them by surprise."

Sakura interrupted his musings. "Actually Naruto, Ino is a natural chakra sensor, like most Yamanaka. She's not very well trained in it yet, but she can already pick out a chakra source from quite a long way away. That was the other reason I had you create as many clones as you did today: it blanketed the area in your chakra. With the amount you have, sitting in one place near you would have been like trying to hide in broad daylight."

"Very well! So we must evade two sensory types to launch our strike on their encampment. This will require careful planning" Lee stated decisively, crossing his arms and leaning back. "Unfortunately, I am not very good at planning."

"Just be quiet Lee" Neji drawled. "You don't need to speak for the sake of speaking."

"What's your idea then Neji?" Kiba countered, having quickly gotten tired of Neji's attitude. "Since your eyes are so amazing, what does your _perfect vision _show you?!"

"That's it!" Naruto exclaimed, grabbing Sakura in a tight hug and swinging her around in celebration. Quite summarily flooring him with a punch to the head, Sakura dusted herself off as Naruto lay on the ground recovering.

"Ne, so mean Sakura-chan" Naruto complained, nursing the swollen lump atop his crown.

"Naruto-kun, the plan?" Hinata asked, timidly.

"Right!" Naruto was miraculously healed in an instant, up and exuberantly outlining his plan.

"You said that standing near me was like trying to hide in broad daylight, right? Well, like Gai showed us with his Dynamic Entry, leaping down from the sky when the sun is high is a good way to stun your enemy whilst letting you deliver your attack. If we approach the camp as quietly as we can, and I flare my chakra like I did before with Kurenai-sensei…"

"They won't be able to detect anything other than your chakra. It would be like chakra blindness" Neji replied, thinking hard. "It wouldn't work on an accomplished sensor, but given that their sensors are two academy students… it may actually work."

* * *

"OK, they're camped out down there." Neji whispered to the group. "Everyone but Sasuke is in the camp at the moment, Sasuke is a little further out by the stream. He's…"

At this point, Neji paused, with a look of confusion on his face.

"He's what?" Sakura whispered impatiently, keen to find out anything that would give them an advantage. It was clearly not because she wanted more information about _Sasuke-kun_. Not at all. Nope.

"He's cleaning a cut on his head in the stream." Neji turned to Naruto. "You weren't lying."

Naruto huffed and turned away, not even bothering to respond.

"Does everyone know the plan?" Sakura asked nervously.

"Yes, now let's go!" Kiba barked, albeit as quietly as possible. Leaping through the underbrush with Akamaru snugly tucked into his hood, he rounded the camp until he paused on the opposite side, awaiting their signal.

Naruto took a deep breath as he snuck towards the front of the camp. The term camp was probably over-glorifying what was effectively two tents facing a fire-pit, but it was the best anyone could expect in the short notice. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he took a deep breath and began to dig deep to draw out his well of chakra.

Feeling the sensation of it, coiling, ready to spring, he forced as much through his tenketsu as humanly possible, releasing a pulse of chakra that rustled the foliage around him and set both Shino's and Ino's senses alight.

"Naruto" Shino stated simply, looking over in the direction the pulse came from. It was simply enough to identify the chakra source; no-one else in their group could create such a powerful release of chakra at their young age.

As Shino began to move towards the source, he had to leap back to avoid a fist swinging in from his side. His eyes darting to the side in surprise (but in Aburame terms, so looking exactly the same as always), he dodged a second swing from Sakura and sprung back to gain some distance over his close-combat favouring opponent.

"Gatsūga!" Kiba bellowed, as he and a transformed Akamaru smashed through the campsite in an attempt to blindside Shino. Landing on all fours after his spinning attack alongside Akamaru, who was now out of his transformation, Kiba supported himself as his vision blurred slightly.

'Damn it, Kaa-san warned me that using that technique was draining, but I could use it at least twice in training before I had to stop. What…'

Realising his mistake, Kiba opened his mouth to warn his team before darkness overtook him.

Shino reformed from a swarm of insects, having been scattered previously by Kiba's ill-fated attack. Throwing his arms out, he unleashed his hive towards Sakura and an onrushing Hinata, having already seen that Neji's charge into the camp had been interrupted by Tenten's timely intervention, after having dealt with Kiba of course.

Sakura fell slightly back, launching a kunai towards the oncoming insects that quickly overtook Hinata's run. Detonating the tag attached to the kunai and scattering the insects, Sakura leapt into the undergrowth just in time to witness Hinata leaping through the gap to engage Shino in hand-to-hand. Knowing her next part of the plan, Sakura hurtled parallel to the camp, bypassing the several fights occurring inside in search of her next opponent.

"Hey forehead!" was all Sakura heard before her side was plowed into by what felt like a herd of elephants, sending her skipping through the bushes until she skidded to rest along the floor. "Catch!"

Instinctively, knowing that voice and the pain it promised all too well from their many spars, Sakura covered her mouth and nose as a small ball flew in front of her face. Leaping away, she was unprepared for the blinding flash of light it emitted, stunning her and forcing her backwards, unable to protect herself against the simple neck-chop that eliminated her from the fight.

Chōji lowered Sakura to the ground, having caught her as she slumped. "Nicely done Ino. Shikamaru, what's next?"

Shikamaru stepped forwards out of the shadow to speak to the plump boy. "We need to find Lee next, he's our target. Between your taijutsu to slow him down and his lack of chakra to resist Ino's and my own techniques, he should be simple for us to beat.

"I am sad to hear you think so low of me" a voice announced, sounding slightly hurt. "After all of my hard work, it seems people still will not recognise my efforts. Yosh! I will redouble them once more, and prove to everyone that I too can be a great ninja!" Clenching his fist with fire in his eyes, Lee stepped into view, in all his bright green spandex glory. "I will begin by defeating you three!"

"OK, that means Naruto must have gone to face Sasuke" Shikamaru whispered. "They've gone according to what we believed they would, carry on as planned."

Getting a nod from the remainder of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, Shikamaru turned to face his opponent. "...Go!"

Charging forward, Chōji bellowed as he approached Lee, heaving back one massive arm to deliver a stunning blow to Lee's passive visage. As expected, his attack missed by some margin, leaving him open to Lee's rapid counter-attacks, stinging in various places around his body as the thinner boy leapt around the larger, darting in and out of his guard as he delivered as many blows as possible.

As Lee leapt back once more out of the reach of Chōji's now enormous, grasping hand, he froze abruptly.

"Kagemane no jutsu, complete" Shikamaru announced. "Now Ino!"

At this, the colour drained from Lee's face. "Wait, Ino? No d-"

"Shintenshin no jutsu!"

Ino's body slumped into Chōji's arms, before Lee's body also collapsed. Looking at the bodies of both of their fallen friends, Shikamaru frowned before looking over to Chōji. "This isn't good".

Lee's body exploded in a puff of smoke, revealing their orange-clad prankster of a friend. The pieces instantly slotted into place as Shikamaru realised just what had happened. Frantically rummaging through his pockets, he grabbed out a small tube and aimed it high into the air.

* * *

Hi Folks! Sorry this one took so long to get out, writer's block along with a myriad of other things really changes someone's priorities.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed it, next chapter will be the aftermath of this exercise, a little more training and possibly a field trip. Yay!


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